


No Game For Old Men - Book Three

by Ryk_Oakwine



Series: No Game For Old Men [3]
Category: Sekirei
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dare to tell a new story, Embedded Images, F/F, F/M, Feels, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, My alien sex slave is hotter than your alien sex slave, Non-Canon Relationship, Non-Canon Storyline, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Psychic Sex, Real People in Anime Situations, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:53:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8774683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryk_Oakwine/pseuds/Ryk_Oakwine
Summary: Not all Ashikabi are young men with blank slate lives like Sahashi Minato. Some have families, careers, friends, relationships. For most, the Sekirei Plan is a disaster that wrecks the lives of Ashikabi and Sekirei alike. This is the story of Sekirei 37, Madoka and all the others who weren't the special privileged favorites of the Gods and the Canon Author.





	1. NGFOM 3.1 - Growing Dangers, New Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: This story is still rated M in case anyone reading it forgot. No one under 17 admitted without parent. Seriously.
> 
> One reviewer mentioned that Nikon does not make a v10 camera, and this is true, at the time of this posting in 2015. Readers should remember the Sekirei story is set 15 years in the future from the date it began publication (the first Sekirei manga were in 2005), or, 2020 AD. The author has taken freedoms in assuming all sorts of minor technological advancements, even if the canon material shows teenagers in 2020 AD in Japan using Nokia flip phones, against all reason. Even Hiroto Minaka, the President of MBI, is shown in the anime using a circa 2002 Nokia flip phone! No, this story is set in the near future so there are minor tech advances.

**No Game For Old Men**

Book 3.1 – Growing Dangers, New Revelations

* * *

 

_Bonus Material: Note, some of the pics and other bonus material at the Tumblr could be considered rather "spoilery" so the author strongly recommends reading all of Book Three (that's chapters 1 and 2 of this "work") before perusing the bonus material! So, that said, you should know that Pictures (NSFW) and a map of Book 3 locations posted to the author's tumblr page,[oakwinefanfic.tumblr.com](http://oakwinefanfic.tumblr.com/post/119622567489/images-from-book-three-of-no-game-for-old-men)._

_Also, the "No Game For Old Men" Google Map to the locations mentioned in this story is located[here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RMgaOhbcA43wH6DCQKPJvIOcWCM&usp=sharing).  Each book is on its own layer on the map so you'll want to make sure the Book 3 layer is visible (and the other Books layers hidden). I hope you enjoy exploring Tokyo via Google Maps Street View as much as I did while researching for this story! _

:::NGFOM 3.1:::  
:::NGFOM 3.1:::

{ _Farsense or other Metafaculties_ }  
[ _Memories_ ]  
" _Internal dialogue_."

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Gregory O'Donnell stood in the entryway of his apartment, pulling his suit jacket on as he prepared to leave for school to teach his Saturday morning "English as a Second Language" class. He checked to make sure his hair was dry; he was running a little behind so had skipped the hair-drying portion of his morning shower. One of the advantages to wearing his hair in a short buzz cut was that it did not take long to dry.

Earlier — as he had headed into the bath to get his morning shower — his Sekirei, 37 Madoka, had wandered from her room and past him. She was all sleepy-eyed and with mussed hair and heading to the kitchen. Gregory was unable to ignore the fact she was topless, with her large breasts and light pink nipples parading right by him in the hallway. As far as he could tell the only thing she was wearing was her favorite pair of sleeping shorts, which were so short as to really need a different name than "shorts" or even "briefs". Maybe "tinies", "diminutives", or even "infinitesimals".

It had become somewhat common for him to see Madoka in skimpy "comfortable" clothes over the last few weeks since it was just the two of them in the apartment now but she had never forgotten to put on a shirt before! This encounter in the hallway resulted in the same delay in the shower that encountering his amazingly sexy Sekirei usually resulted in.

Gregory thought to himself, _"I swear to God, if I get carpal tunnel syndrome because of being an Ashikabi, I'm suing MBI."_

As he headed out the door for class he called out towards the back of the apartment where Madoka was, he assumed, lying in bed in Mishi's bedroom. Or, rather, Mishi's ex-bedroom. "Bye, Mado-chan! Remember, I won't be back till later, I've got to meet those landlords! Call me or text me if you need anything! Oh, and don't forget to hit the ATM!"

He could just make out her faint reply through her bedroom door, "See you, Gregory-kun!"

She sounded out of breath. Or maybe it was just the door in the way. He shrugged and shut the apartment door behind him.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::

"Jā matane, Gregory-kun!"

Sekirei number 37, Sanjunana Madoka, bonded Sekirei of Ashikabi Gregory O'Donnell, was indeed lying in bed but she was not napping as her Ashikabi had assumed. No, she was instead lying naked among the tangled sheets of Mishi's bed panting for breath and almost glowing with contentment. With her half-lidded eyes, slightly parted lips, and her creamy skin with just enough sweat to have a healthy radiance she looked almost ridiculously satisfied.

She stretched her arms over her head and arched her back extravagantly, incidentally presenting her glorious body for full display to any observers.

Boy did she ever _love_ Gregory's "shower time"! She would wait, listening through the wall separating her room and the bath, for the flash of his thoughts and feelings through their metapsychic bond. Flashover which included all of the physical sensations as well as the extremely detailed visualizations of his fantasies of her as he climaxed. And it was better than anything she'd _ever_ experienced either alone or with the lovers she'd had in the MBI Sekirei Labs before the Sekirei Plan began.

It was not even close. It was practically a different thing entirely. There should be different words for this because "sex" and "orgasm" were not nearly sufficient!

She remembered the first time it had happened, Christmas Eve three weeks ago. The intensity of the experience — both the visual fantasy and the actual orgasm — overwhelmed her at the time. It terrified the hell out of her, actually.

But now?

 _Now_ she made an effort to come up with new ways to "inspire" her Ashikabi every day, as many times a day as she could. Today was the first time she'd dared pretend to be sleepy enough to have forgotten her shirt. For a moment there she had wondered if Gregory was going to get a nosebleed, like in the animes.

She also made sure he had plenty opportunity for private time. If he went to his bedroom and shut the door she _never_ knocked to disturb him. _And_ she'd told him flat out that, in her opinion, _two_ nice long showers a day should be considered a minimum for a civilized person.

He had no idea that she… benefited from what he assumed was his private time and Madoka felt he did not need to know. It was not hurting anything!

Her own "private time" was singularly unsatisfying by comparison. On the few days that she did not manage to motivate Gregory to take matters into his own hands Madoka resorted to taking care of herself. It wasn't something she was terribly used to doing, though. In the MBI Sekirei Labs it was always difficult to get into the mood since you never knew when you were — literally — being watched. And no matter how horny the teenager the suspicion that you are being watched by perverted security and scientific staff while you were in the shower or in your bed is a mood killer.

Except for 54 Kuruse. There was something wrong with that girl. Madoka wondered how often Kuruse would end up in trouble with the Tokyo Police once she as released into the city. Public indecency would be the least of the charges the exhibitionist Sekirei would likely face on a regular basis.

But with the luxurious privacy that living in the _real_ world granted Madoka found that even though she was constantly horny since her winging masturbation was just not good enough. She could get herself off — given some time and some effort — but all too often the orgasms she managed were disappointing. Too much work, not enough payoff.

Maybe she was just doing it wrong. She would have to ask Gregory.

She grinned at the thought of that conversation. She wished she had the courage to do it.

But for now Gregory's orgasms would do. And though the physical experience of the incredibly intense climax was very satisfying, the thoughts and emotions she also received were more difficult to process. More than a few of the visuals she received from Gregory during his orgasm were startling, even shocking, for the young Sekirei. The graphic, blatantly lustful, in-your-face carnality of Gregory's thoughts at the moment of his orgasm were just _not_ the sort of things about which she had ever fantasized during her infrequent masturbation back in the Dorms. Or _ever_ thought about, at _any_ time. She recalled how she used to fantasize about her future Ashikabi; maybe she would think about how his voice might sound whispering sweet nothings into her ear or what it might be like to kiss him. Maybe she would think about his hands touching her. Since all of her sexual experiences before now were strictly girl-sex she'd had no real knowledge of male sexuality. So she'd had no information with which to build realistic sexual fantasies involving a male Ashikabi.

She no longer suffered from such a lack of knowledge. She'd bet she was more aware of male sexuality now than almost any woman who'd ever lived. Gregory's fantasies were a lot more... specific than her vague adolescent romantic fantasies, that was for sure. There were no tender looks and romantic words. No, it was more like _cumming down her throat_ or _furiously jackhammering her pussy until she screamed her release_.

She knew those were even the words in his fantasies and those words made her blush just thinking about them in the privacy of her own head. There was never the sense that he thought of that girl " gently stroking his shaft". No, it was _throat fucking her eager mouth with his cock_. It wasn't him "releasing himself inside her", it was _gushing cum into her pussy until it dribbled down her ass-crack_. These thoughts had intimidated her at first. Hell, they intimidated her still! It was just _so_ different from anything she would have ever expected from her kind and polite Ashikabi. Gregory was a _school teacher;_ he couldn't think in those kinds of words!

Oddly, even though these things intimidated her, Gregory's thoughts never _offended_ her. No matter how vulgar the word or how carnal the act that came to Gregory's mind during those moments, she never once felt the familiar impulse to retreat from a "pervert" in offense and anger.

And Madoka would never have guessed at how powerful the need to _thrust hard and deep_ was. She never would have imagined how almost-violent the drives were for a man. How — especially at the moment of climax — the almost-impossible-to-deny impulse was to _fuck_ her _pussy_ with his _cock_ as _hard_ as he could…

The things she felt and saw during the flashover from her Ashikabi's orgasm and fantasy let her understand now the looks that men gave her in a way that she would never have otherwise. She found that this understanding had changed how she felt about the inevitable glances she received, especially from older men. She _got_ it now. She knew that look was not just admiration in the way you might admire a work of art. No, it meant _desire_ and _lust_ sometimes so strong it clouded their minds.

She could appreciate those looks now. She no longer saw "creepy old perverts" ogling a young woman inappropriately; now she saw _men_ who, once upon a time, knew the feel and taste of lovely young flesh for themselves. They had felt and tasted and scented sex with beautiful nubile young women once upon a time but would never do so again.

She knew now first-hand\second-hand exactly how desirable that flesh appeared in their eyes. She found it sad — even tragic — that they would never again touch, taste, or smell that which they were wired to crave.

So now she found herself enjoying the idea that when they saw her they felt their blood stir. She found herself occasionally smiling at a middle-aged salaryman who she caught gazing at her breasts while on her bicycle, or winking at the old man who sold noodles from a cart near the safe house. She could sometimes _feel_ just how it brightened their day, to get a smile and a wave from that impossibly-beyond-their-reach girl who they had been eyeing.

Right now she could not help but giggle tiredly as she relaxed from the full body stretch and curled up on her side, smiling happily, and she wondered what it would be like to have sex with her Ashikabi instead of just piggybacking on his fantasies and orgasms in the shower.

She did not know what it would be like.

And that was growing more and more unacceptable. It could not be just like the flashes she caught of her Ashikabi's fantasies but still it would surely be phenomenal, mind blowing, sanity depriving.

And she _wanted_ that. She could not even remember now thinking that Gregory was old or that the idea of sex with him was "gross". Now she just burned for him because she knew how much he burned for her. She _knew._ She knew what he felt when he looked at her in a way no woman ever had before known what her man felt. And looking through Gregory O'Donnell's eyes at her own face and body was addictive!

There was nothing in the world she could look at that was as beautiful as what Gregory saw when he looked at her.

She thought for a moment about her journal that Gregory had asked her to keep about her feelings. She reached over and picked up her phone and began making notes in the encrypted Journal app she used. As she tapped away at the screen she was blushing furiously. She hoped no one ever read the things she had been writing in this journal for the last few weeks. Mishi would think Madoka the biggest slut in the world, a world-class pervert. Even the idea of a disinterested scientific aide reviewing the contents of her journal for the betterment of science was mortifying.

But Gregory asked so she wrote and wrote honestly.

After spending some moments letting sex flow from her mind and into the journal she then sat the phone down and pulled a pillow close to hug against her body. She then let her mind wander. How to convince Gregory to take that step, to go beyond the kissing they did each weekend? The kissing was nice. _Really_ nice. But she wanted more. She _needed_ more. But in spite of his wife leaving and the two being separated now Gregory still felt very married, as he had explained to her after one of their "Norito practice" kisses last weekend when she had hinted at wanting more.

Well that was where Gregory's lessons on "strategy" and "tactics" were helping her. She was wearing him down, she knew it.

Madoka hummed contentedly as she dozed away the morning.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::  
:::NGFOM 3.1:::

"Fourteen weeks, the loft and the garage under it. No lease, no paperwork, just me and my… friend… will be staying there. Mostly my friend." Gregory sat, a bit stiffly, in a chair before the desk of the third property owner he had spoken to today. He hoped this one worked out; it was in the Ebisu neighborhood of Shibuya Ward in west Shin Tokyo, south of where the O'Donnell's apartment was located, and actually closer to Tokyo Metro High than his apartment was.

The property owner, a young Japanese man who went by Arnaud, typically rented his loft and studio spaces by the day or week to tourists but was glad to talk to Gregory O'Donnell about a longer rental. No vacancy for four months and no need to market that unit was an excellent opportunity for his business. However, he frowned at the suggestion of no lease and no paperwork.

"Ah? Gregory-san, might you have a photo of your friend that you could share with me?"

Gregory, having anticipated this request, held up his phone then placed it on Arnaud's desk, leaving it propped up on its built-in stand. The animated photo of a silk-yukata clad Madoka, smiling happily among the gardens of the Shoun-ji temple and waving at the camera, caused Arnaud's eyebrows to lift for a moment. After a few seconds, the picture flipped to the next in the series of portraits and snapshots Gregory had assembled for this very purpose.

With an envious expression on his face, Arnaud said, "I believe I understand completely, Gregory-san. Fourteen weeks, with the garage as well, you said?"

"Yes. For permission to make use of this space for fourteen weeks, starting tomorrow January 19th and running through April 26th, you will be compensated 25% above the listed rent of ¥40,000 per week. Thus, rents paid of ¥700,000, in cash, in advance." Gregory paused for a moment, politely ignoring Arnaud's coughing fit, and then waited as the property owner took a sip of water. Arnaud-san was a young man for the sort of business he was in, so Gregory cut the man a bit of slack at his lack of complete, reserved, composure.

Gregory continued, "A security deposit of ¥1,000,000 would be an acceptable expectation, with the understanding that both parties fully intend this security deposit to be returned to myself at the end of the fourteen-week period, assuming of course that the property is surrendered back to you in good condition. For the additional trouble caused to you by meeting our non-negotiable requirements regarding confidentiality and discretion, please consider an offer of a further ¥300,000 to be presented to you personally Arnaud-san, in gratitude, at the end of the 14 week term."

 _That_ was as bluntly as he needed to spell out that Arnaud would be ¥300,000 poorer if he did _not_ keep Gregory's secrets for him. Arnaud-san was no fool; as soon as Gregory had mentioned cash in advance and no paper leases he understood what they were discussing. Gregory considered it a _discussion_ , not a _negotiation_ , given as he had opened with an offer that went significantly over the top of Arnaud's asking price, when the property owner was used to prospective tenants attempting to negotiate downwards and set his asking price accordingly.

Gregory had practiced this pitch in Japanese to make sure he had the oblique courtesies correct. He had not had to practice or pre-script Japanese in years but this _was_ a unique situation. Gregory was glad he was carrying on this negotiation in Japanese and here in Shin Tokyo; he doubted he would know where to begin if he were trying to rent a love nest for a mistress in, say, Chicago, or back home in Manchester. Here, there was practically a script for both parties to follow.

One might expect a landlord to try to take advantage of a potential tenant so obviously eager. After all, Gregory's opening with such a high offer might seem a sign of desperation. And it was true that one of the property owners Gregory had met already this day had tried just that.

Gregory had walked out of that office without as much as a polite goodbye. Raising the already high offer was not how the game was played. Either that property owner had not known it, and therefore revealed himself to be a fool and without sophistication, or he _had_ known but felt Gregory did not deserve to be treated as a civilized person.

Honorable Arnaud-san, though, was not such a fool. He understood right away that the high offer was the only offer, and recognized the script they would be performing from.

Gregory politely did not notice Arnaud's eyes widening at the mention of an additional ¥300,000. Gregory's base offer of ¥50,000 per week was already generous for a space that was only a concrete walled second-floor loft with a small, separate bathroom. It was, to be sure, a very _large_ loft, 50 square meters of space, or as Gregory still thought of it, about 540 square feet, which likely had spent time as a retail store at some time in the building's history. There was a car garage immediately downstairs that the Jeep would just barely fit into, which was an uncommon feature for a residence in Shin Tokyo, even if the affluent Shibuya Ward.

Today, for security's sake, he had parked the Jeep in a public parking lot near the property owner's office. He would likely continue to park the Jeep away from the loft when staying at the place, but having a garage available if needed was worth the extra rent MBI was paying.

It _was_ MBI's money, and that thought brought a smile to Gregory's face. MBI had cost him his daughter; he intended to cost MBI as much as possible in return.

The front windows of the loft looked out over a trendy, cluttered, pedestrian "back street" with retail shops and cafes all along on both sides. The back of the rental faced the sidewalk-lined concrete embankments of the Shibuya River. The Shibuya River was not much of a river; it hadn't been a real river in centuries. It was now more a concrete canal, but it was a feature of Shibuya Ward and the citizens would never tolerate it being paved over in order to make more square meters of land available, even with how incredibly dense the population was in Shin Tokyo.

The garage was accessed via the narrow street that ran along one side of the building.

It was a prime location for young, well off, tourists who would rent the place for a week while enjoying the party scene of Shibuya Ward. The loft was also an excellent place for a man to rent for his young mistress, who no doubt enjoyed the nightlife of Shibuya herself. That was the story, and the photo of gorgeous Madoka waving at the camera sold it perfectly.

Arnaud smiled politely and glanced again at the phone display resting on his desk, now rotating through a selection of images of Gregory-san's beautiful "friend". "It would be my great honor to provide shelter for you and your lovely friend, Gregory-san. You can absolutely depend upon my discretion."

"Good, Arnaud-san. The current furnishings are adequate at least for us to take possession of the loft. As we replace the current furnishings and appliances we will notify your office so that your people may remove the no longer needed items from the garage, where I will insure they are staged."

Arnaud smiled even wider. Gregory would pay for upgrades to the appliances and pay for the privilege? He might be able to swing a deal with this tenant where Arnaud could avoid paying for the next remodel of the rental space entirely!

Gregory stood and bowed. Arnaud stood and bowed. Arnaud pretended he was not counting how many stacks of ¥1,000 notes Gregory removed from his briefcase and stacked upon the desk. Gregory pretended to believe Arnaud had not exactly appraised the stacks to the last yen by eyeball alone.

By the time Gregory had transferred the fourteen weeks of pre-paid rent and the security deposit in cash to the property owner's desk in the form of seventeen bank-straps of one hundred ¥1,000 notes. Gregory was amused at what a large pile of money ¥1,700,000 really was.

Arnaud had fetched the keys for the doors, the security code for the alarms, and the garage access opener. As Arnaud prepared to write out a receipt for the large sum of cash, Gregory reminded him he preferred no paperwork of any sort for this transaction.

Arnaud stared at Gregory for a moment before commenting, "Gregory-san, you will forfeit any tax benefits entirely as you will have no receipt, but I sense that does not bother you. But… you will be leaving this office with no acknowledgment from my office that we have received these funds!"

Gregory smiled. Not having some proof of transfer of funds or proof of contractual obligations meant Gregory was accepting the entirety of the risks of this arrangement. He would not be able to prove to a court that he paid Arnaud the ¥1,700,000 in cash, nor could he prove what had been agreed between he and Arnaud as far as the facilities. Anyone taking upon themselves such serious one-sided risk bothered the businessman visibly, even when it was he who would be holding all of the cards the moment Gregory walked out of the office.

"I do understand your concern, Arnaud-san, and I appreciate it, truly. You and I know that I have paid you the sum agreed upon. You and I know what facilities we agreed upon and you and I know the dates on which we agreed. As I have complete confidence in your honorable nature I have nothing to worry about."

Arnaud considered Gregory's words then nodded once, then bowed rather deeply to Gregory. Rather more deeply than the man had bowed than when Gregory had entered the office.

"So. Thank you Arnaud-san. On behalf of my friend, as well. We both look forward to enjoying these facilities for the next few months. Ah, one more minor item. It is likely that we may have special requirements for communications access, internet and cable, which are beyond what is currently provided to the building. If so, I will gladly assume whatever expenses arise from upgrading such in your property management company's name."

"Of course, Gregory-san. You may contact me at any time with your requirements and I will be glad to handle everything on your behalf."

Gregory smiled politely.

Man it was _so_ awesome being kind-of-pretend rich! Gregory didn't think he'd ever get bored with Japanese businessmen kissing his ass in the language of formal Japanese courtesy, the likes of which mere school-teacher Gregory O'Donnell had never been judged worthy of.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::  
:::NGFOM 3.1:::

It was sunset when Gregory finally returned to the O'Donnell's apartment. It had taken personal discussions with three different property owners before he had finally met with the cooperative and understanding Arnaud, so his Saturday afternoon - as well as four days' worth of ATM cash withdrawals from the MBI card - had been sacrificed in the name of arranging a safe place for Madoka and himself. It was worth it, he thought, as even just talking about plans in the O'Donnell's apartment was too risky, considering how compromised the place likely was to MBI's Sekirei Plan Operations Intelligence division.

As well, here, in the apartment he had shared with his family for five years, he had constant reminders of his absent wife and daughter. Reminders that did his emotional state no good. Gregory observed, again, that he'd still not taken down the Christmas decorations, left over from the disastrous last Christmas he'd likely ever spend with his daughter.

Refocusing on the present, Gregory smiled at the fact that the "back street loft" rental that he and Madoka now had was just the sort of uniquely Tokyo living space he'd long fantasized of living in, if his financial and domestic circumstances were different (and if he were a twenty-something, worldly, bohemian photographer instead of a middle aged schoolteacher).

Now his financial and domestic circumstances were, indeed, different and though he still wasn't a twenty-something, worldly, bohemian photographer he at least had a lot of extremely good photographs of his twenty-something gorgeous girlfriend. Or Sekirei. Or… well, whatever Madoka was to him now.

Gregory felt that he _needed_ to step outside of the comfortable box he'd built for himself to live in. He would have been content to live out the rest of his life on the track it had been following, more than content actually. But if he had to participate in this idiotic Sekirei Plan, if he was going to see everything he had worked hard to build for himself and for his family destroyed, one inevitable piece at a time, by the insanity of Hiroko Minaka, well, the least Gregory O'Donnell should get out of it was a few months of a different lifestyle. He'd already taken an "until further notice" leave of absence from his online gaming guild association, declined the position of "assistant sponsor" to the American Media Student Club at the school that he'd held for five years now, and now he was taking steps to live at least part time somewhere new.

"Mado-chan! You here?" Gregory shut the door behind him then sat his briefcase down next to the computer desk in the living room. He heard Madoka's voice from the back of the apartment.

"Yes, Gregory-kun, one minute!"

Speaking Japanese in the apartment, where for five years the hard and fast family rule had been English Only inside and Japanese outside. Another reminder of the fact that this apartment wasn't really his family's home anymore even if he kept treating it as such.

Sanjunana Madoka - or more accurately Sekirei number 37 Madoka - welcomed him back from work with a hug, then she stretched up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. A cheek which he turned to her for kissing, having learned that if he gave her a chance to kiss him on the lips she would usually take it regardless of his rule about them not engaging in "inappropriate" behavior in his family's apartment.

"Hi, Mado-chan. You look lovely today." And boy, did she! Wearing a pair of really really tight denim shorts and a white cotton tank-top style shirt, she looked better than the hope of heaven. "Did you get the paperwork from the apartment management company?"

Madoka tapped a folder that was lying on his computer desk which had the O'Donnell family apartment's address printed on the cover. "Yes Gregory-kun, and even though the manager grumbled about how 'irregular' this is, he still drew up the 12 month lease extension on this apartment for you.  And he took the MBI Platinum card to charge the entire lease to the card's account. I think being paid in advance for a whole year was a unique situation for him, Gregory-kun."

Laughing, Gregory agreed. "No doubt. And being paid on a credit card for a lease was probably something completely new for him as well. Well, we did wonder how much that 'unlimited' MBI Platinum card was good for. Now we know it will at least allow the payment for an apartment for one year. Now we don't have to worry about this place for a long while, no matter what might happen with my job. It's good to have that off my mind for the foreseeable future."

Gregory set his old "compromised" phone down on the coffee table alongside his personal tablet he took back and forth to school, not concerned about possible MBI Intelligence listening in.  They were in the habit by now of censoring their speech in the apartment.  "Oh, and we had three new hits on the Ashikabi-Sekirei social media pages. One on Global Homie and two on Google+. Still no one who's visited the pages has tried to reach us with the contact emails listed, but we're getting more hits on the pages so it's bound to happen soon."

Madoka had gone to the kitchen to fetch herself a can of green Pokka tea and Gregory a bottle of Diet Coke and she made agreeing noises from there. By the time she'd joined him on the couch Gregory had taken off his jacket and tie and had put the new O'Donnell apartment lease extension paperwork away in the hard-copy filing cabinet next to his computer desk.

He turned on the large wall monitor and queued up a random ambient music playlist to provide some background noise. He smiled at Makoda and waved her over closer on the couch.  After she snuggled in close he put his lips right next to her ear and whispered, "I found a place for us. It is ours starting tomorrow, through the end of April. It will cost us almost two million yen of the cash we've accumulated but it's worth it. Oh, and he's having So-net run dedicated six gigabit fiber optic service to the place, with the account in his property management company name so our names are not involved."

He pulled back and raised his eyebrows at her. Gregory held out the new Sony RX1000 camera that he'd purchased for taking snapshots, since he could no longer trust the camera on his phone to be secure. The RX1000 was nowhere near the quality of the Nikon v10 that he considered his "real" camera, but the Nikon v10 was also a bit of a beast for taking quick photos.  A "snapshot" camera it was most definitely not. So, the small, pocket-sized RX1000 was now their most used camera. They only used their phones for taking snapshots they wanted MBI to see, on the assumption that MBI had access to all of their cellular accounts.

Gregory flipped the RX1000 around to the display screen on the back to show her the pictures he'd taken of the studio, the garage, the quaint "back street" that the loft looked out over, and the view from the back door, out over the narrow concrete embankments that made up the Shibuya River.

Madoka grinned widely at the pictures and then gave him a thumbs-up gesture. She then leaned over to whisper into his ear, holding the back of his head to pull him close.  Which maneuver had the "completely unplanned" side effect of pointing his eyes right down at her chest. He was so glad she had lost the habit of wearing a bra over the last few weeks as the clearly visible nipple bumps poking at the front of her shirt semaphored her happiness.

It was a view he _really_ liked. It also made it damn difficult to hear what she was saying.

" _God, she has the most perfect tits ever. In the entire history of tits."_

"Oh Gregory-kun, that is wonderful! And we can use the card to buy futon and appliances and décor! I'm so excited!  It is our own place! Me and my Ashikabi! This is such wonderful news Gregory-kun!" she whispered in his ear in a rush while bouncing up and down in her seat. Gregory began to feel a bit light headed; the view of bouncing, nipply, Madoka tits into which his face was almost pressed could possibly be considered life threatening to a man his age.

" _Oh, God! I'm having a stroke! Is it getting dark in here? That really would be my luck; killed by amazing tits."_

He made a note to ask his doctor if he were healthy enough for sexual activity. God knew he couldn't know if he was or not from the way his marriage bed had been used for nothing but sleeping for the last few years.

Madoka pulled back from his ear and almost made to kiss him before she obviously remembered his rule about no kissing in the O'Donnell's apartment.

He was still uncomfortable kissing his beautiful Sekirei, even with the excuse of practicing for her Norito. And he flatly refused to do _anything_ of the sort in the apartment that he still considered his and his family's home. Gregory took great pains to not treat Madoka any different, at the apartment, now than he did when his family was still here.

This was one of the reasons they had spent every weekend since New Year's enjoying a different five-star hotel. There was also the fact that staying at five-star hotels and enjoying their room service menus and their restaurants and their spas was a _lot_ of fun when you are not the one paying the bill.

God bless MBI. But only the Sekirei Plan Budget department.

Madoka leaned back and settled onto the couch, her happy expression changing to a frown. She held up her phone to Gregory and asked, "Gregory-kun, is there a way you can make it so my phone cannot receive phone calls or text messages from a specific number?"

He looked at the phone then at Madoka's unhappy expression and nodded. "Mishi?"

Madoka looked away and nodded. "She is very mad at me and, I am sorry, but you as well, especially with actually returning to America yesterday with Karen. I think she had hoped to the very end that you would let her stay here in spite of Karen's wishes, perhaps showing up at the airport at the last minute to save her. She is… well. She is very mad."

Gregory agreed, his own expression turning sober, "I know she did. I wanted to keep her here. I know that's what she wanted and not for bad reasons. And I did think about it, I did. I thought about it and drew up lists of pros and cons… But if I had challenged Karen's right to take Mishi back home it would have been the start of a huge legal fight, one I would have to pay for a lawyer out of my salary, it's not like we could use the MBI Card for it, and would have the Japanese courts soon looking into every aspect of my financial and home life. It would be a complete mess, no matter what the end result turned out to be. I doubt Mishi will ever forgive me but I just couldn't stop Karen from taking her back to New Hampshire. I'm sorry that she blames you, Mado-chan. I know you were close to her."

Madoka nodded, still looking away. She mumbled, "She could have been my Ashikabi. And she was my first and only regular, you know, _human_ , friend."

The voice mails and text messages on his own phone from the daughter he dearly loved assured him that she hated him with every fiber of her being and that she would never forgive him for his part in her mother uprooting her and forcing her to move back to New Hampshire.

Gregory treated his feelings about Mishi the same way he had been treating his feelings about Karen. Locking them away in a box labeled "can't fix this right now". If he allowed it, he would end up a weeping, drunk, mess over the way things had devolved. So he locked it all away; every time he found himself thinking about Karen or Mishi, he shut the lid on that box as hard as he could.

Can't fix this right now. Lock it away until… some other time.

Maybe, someday, he would have the opportunity to meet the people responsible for the Sekirei Plan and let them know just how much harm they had done. Gregory did not consider himself a violent or vicious man, but when he thought of the messages that he had received from his distraught daughter and how he would never be able to repair the damage done to their previously close relationship… he _hoped_ he had the opportunity to impress on those responsible _exactly_ how he felt about them.

He could only imagine how vicious Mishi's messages must have gotten to push Madoka to take this step, blocking all of her communications. To cut off all contact now was a sign of desperation on Madoka's part.

"I'll take care of it right now, Mado-chan. Why don't you pack a bag for tonight, we've got reservations at the Tokyo Westin, just a few blocks from the new place."

"Okay, Gregory-kun, and thank you."

So much for the happy atmosphere. Maybe the Tokyo Westin had a skilled staff masseuse who could be engaged for cheering Madoka and himself back up before their dinner reservations.

The thought of MBI treating him and his lovely Sekirei to a much-needed stress-relieving hour of massage brightened Gregory's mood all by itself.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::  
:::NGFOM 3.1:::

Tuesday, 21 January 2020

Late evening, Gregory found himself reading over his notes on the Farsense tests he and Madoka had finally completed, in the Notebook. The two had just returned to the O'Donnell apartment from the loft, where he and Madoka had been assembling the new king-sized bed they had purchased (Gregory told himself they had bought it for Madoka to sleep on; Madoka told herself they'd bought it for the two of them to sleep on). Madoka was reading something on her tablet; it looked like a gossip page about one of the many J-Pop groups that she liked. At least Gregory thought that's what it looked like. His awareness of Japanese idol culture was pretty limited, by design.

The fast tempo music playing through the living room speakers was another clue, as it was absolutely from his daughter's file library on the main server and not from his music library. He'd shown Madoka weeks ago how to navigate the music folders on the server so she could play whatever she wanted, though at the time he'd assumed she would be playing her selections on her tablet for her own personal enjoyment rather than through the main sound system in the living room.

Gregory squinted his eyes to try to make out the file name on the wall monitor, which was showing a picture of the guy… or girl… Gregory couldn't tell rightly, who was singing as well as the information about the song and artist. SID? AKi? Gregory shook his head and turned his attention back to the Notebook and tried to tune out the music. He _refused_ to be that old guy who complained about someone's music being too loud.

Even if it _was_ too loud.

After checking off the Farsense notes and experiments, Gregory turned a few pages in the Notebook to review what he'd written about the Sekirei and their adaptability.

" _Madoka claims there was never any discussion about what would happen if a Sekirei was bonded to an Ashikabi who she wasn't compatible with. Perhaps this was due to idealistic young women failing to understand that people are rarely perfectly matched and always have differences that cause them to grate on each other when living in close quarters. But it was also never mentioned by the MBI staff and all evidence indicates the MBI staff was surprisingly well informed on the subjects of winging, Ashikabi, and the Norito. Surprisingly well informed for an organization which supposedly had no Sekirei yet released into the city to find their Ashikabi, much less have the opportunity to learn about her Norito powers."_

" _In the case of Madoka and myself I've noticed that over the month that has passed since she bonded with me that her behavior has changed in some dramatic ways. I can't clearly identify the cause of these changes but I can certainly point out things she does now which she most definitely did not do a month ago."_

" _Most obvious among these changes is her increasing flirting with me, through both (surprisingly) witty teasing of just the sort I like and by way of wearing revealing clothing around the apartment more often, on some occasions making it not only easy to catch her topless but almost guaranteeing it. The nervous young woman I found across the street from that donut shop did not seem the sort to behave like this, especially towards an older man. That the Ashikabi-Sekirei relationship is intended, on the Sekirei part at least, to be a mate relationship indicates that there's an obvious motivation for such efforts on her part. But does this intended mate relationship define her behavior even with an Ashikabi she would have no reason to be attracted to and, indeed, previously was not attracted to at all?"_

" _Madoka's change in behavior likely consists of more than just flirtation and her now seemingly to be attracted to her middle-aged Ashikabi. How much of this change is natural relaxation in getting to know someone, a factor more pronounced in Japanese culture than my native culture due to the reservation of the Japanese in general, and how much is due to other factors? Do the Sekirei sense what their Ashikabi want or need in a partner and change themselves to suit that perception? Do they do this more than Terran Humans do, since it's hardly unknown for people to try to change to suit their partners?"_

Gregory paused in his review and took a sip from his can of Diet Coke, stealing a look at the extremely attractive blonde girl relaxing at the other end of the couch. She'd changed into more comfortable clothes as soon as they'd arrived back at the apartment; more comfortable clothes, in this case, always seeming to be defined by how much less skin they covered. Gregory appreciated the view; it was, after all, a superb body she was showing off. He wondered, however, at the change in behavior that those clothes represented and at what might be spurring that change.

While any young woman living with an older man could easily conclude that showing off skin regularly would get his attention and his appreciation, how many would actually do it? And how many would instinctively react to the gaze of the man by covering up more instead of showing off more?

Gregory forced himself to stop staring at Madoka's breasts, covered only by a thin cotton chemise with delightfully visible nipples through the fabric. " _Man, does she have great tits or what? Argh, stop it, Gregory! Focus, Gregory, focus."_

He had a suspicion that the Sekirei changed to suit their Ashikabi, and that the Sekirei were unaware of this happening, or at least the extent to which it happened. They certainly seemed unaware of the mechanism of _how_ it happened, at least with his one singular data point. He needed a way to test this without doing any harm to his Sekirei if he was right. What could he test with? See if her favorite color would change? Change what kinds of clothes she liked to wear?

He gazed at the large monitor on the wall showing the picture of the J-Pop group singing the current song selection, then decided on a plan to test his fledgling theory. If he was right and he could deliberately change some aspect of his Sekirei's personality simply by focusing on _wanting_ that aspect to change, then maybe he could end up with better music in the background out of this.

That was safer than focusing on wanting her to wear even less clothes. Probably.

Picking up his own tablet, Gregory tapped his way through screens until he was viewing a list of the music folders on _his_ section of the main file server. Scrolling down the list of musical genres he had accumulated over the years, he picked one that he felt was extremely unlikely for a teenage Japanese girl to ever become a fan of, then he picked up his pen and wrote in the Notebook.

" _Sekirei Plasticity Theory_ _: All Sekirei, being metapsychically sensitive to a greater degree than is common for Terran Humans, subconsciously receive, through their metapsychic senses, the desires, wants, and preferences of their Ashikabi. Without conscious awareness of the process the Sekirei changes their behavior, attitudes, preferences, likes and dislikes, based on the information they receive from their Ashikabi through this subconscious metapsychic communication."_

Gregory stopped and considered how to go about his test.

" _Currently the only kind of music Madoka selects for herself to listen to is J-Pop and K-Pop, all selections being individuals and groups from no more than 10 years ago. We've never had a conversation on the subject that I can recall nor do I believe I've ever indicated a dislike for such music, though it's not the sort of thing I ever select for myself to listen to and she's likely aware of that fact. Starting this evening, I will spend 10 minutes every 8 hours doing nothing but focusing on my desire for my mate to enjoy 1970's era American Country and Western music. I will note if and when Madoka's musical selections change, if they ever do, and if there has been no change within a week I will increase the amount of time dedicated to inwardly focusing on my desire for her to love "Urban Cowboy" era C &W music…"_

:::NGFOM 3.1:::

" _It sure would be great if my Sekirei loved Urban Cowboy countrty music. I sure wish Madoka liked The Oakridge Boy's songs. I'd love to have a Sekirei who thinks Anne Murray is the best singer ever…"_

:::NGFOM 3.1:::

Saturday, January 25, 2020

A week after acquiring the keys for the "safe house", as Gregory and Madoka had taken to calling the new place, it was mostly furnished and they had a good start on laying in supplies. In his spare time at school, Gregory made lists of things for Madoka to purchase with the MBI Card during the day while he was teaching. To counter MBI's assumed automatic-electronic monitoring they had developed tactics for supplying the safe house without leaving an easy trail for MBI to follow. Madoka had instructions either to pick up the items directly from the store herself, if they were small enough to carry, or to have them delivered to a rent-a-storage garage in the Ebisu neighborhood which they had rented that was not far from the safe house but was also not in the same block. When needed, Gregory would find strong young men who were willing to carry heavy objects in boxes from the storage unit to the safe house for quick cash. He didn't want her doing the hiring, so she left it to him to handle, in the evenings after he arrived at the loft from teaching all day.

Gregory had told her that he did not _know_ if the steps they were taking to keep the safe house off MBI's radar were effective. They were "reasonable" precautions, he said. He did not take his cell phone to the loft and he had not yet needed to park the Jeep in the garage. Madoka's own Samsung cell phone was not brought to the loft either; it had been in communication with his own and with Mishi's, so she and Gregory assumed it was compromised.

This made Madoka unhappy, as her phone was something of a prized possession. It had been a Christmas gift, from her Ashikabi. The first and only Christmas gift she had ever received, actually. But Gregory insisted that it was necessary to keep it away from the safe house, so she left it at the apartment if she was going to be at the loft.

These were all steps she and Gregory could take that would make automatic electronic surveillance and recording more prone to error. And that was their goal, increase the bad data in MBI's records. They could not disappear from MBI's records; they could not purge MBI's databases of what information they had on Madoka and Gregory. But if that data was inaccurate and misleading? That was actually almost as good.

In some ways it was better than disappearing from the system.

Madoka questioned Gregory's assumptions about the nature of MBI's surveillance. He'd had to flat out order her to question him about it, actually. But he insisted it was critical his own thinking be double-checked by someone else, even if that person wasn't particularly sophisticated in these matters.

Gregory kept insisting that _he_ wasn't sophisticated in these matters either. He was just a schoolteacher who had an eclectic range of interests and hobbies. So Madoka's observations and questions were just as valid as his own, or so he continued to maintain.

She thought MBI would have people watching them instead of all of this complicated data stuff. Gregory explained that the "complicated data stuff" was actually very straightforward data collection. And he'd agreed that if MBI had actual agents following Gregory and herself and reporting their locations and actions, then none of this obfuscation would do much good.

 _But_ if that _were_ the case then nothing they could do would help anyway. The pair of them weren't going to avoid actual full-time, skilled, agents that had been tasked with tracking their activities so it would be silly to even try, wasteful to set up tactics for avoiding such observation. Even professional spies and underworld agents couldn't be constantly proof against teams of human assets trained to observe and record their targets.

And neither Gregory nor Madoka were the Super-Secret-Agent-Man types, as Gregory jokingly called it.

Gregory told her he thought it was unlikely that MBI had invested in enough human resources to have them tracked by actual people 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This was the 21st century, using technology to keep track of… well, everything, was ingrained in every level of society. It was less expensive, less prone to error, easier to monitor. And he had little doubt that this mentality was ingrained in MBI's Intelligence division as it was everywhere else. No watchdog security force could resist being able to go to the database and pull pages and pages of specific, detailed, reports on exactly where the targets phones were, what numbers they called, for how long, what the MBI Platinum Cards had been used for, when, where, what delivery instructions if any on any purchases.

So she and Gregory operated from the assumption that MBI's intelligence service tracked Ashikabi and Sekirei by electronic means through their phones and other appliances which had GPS and internet connectivity. They very likely had a very sophisticated database for not only _tracking_ the data they were collecting but also expanding upon and collating that data. The tools they had for analysis of the data they were collecting were probably their most powerful means of keeping track of what was going on with the Sekirei and their Ashikabi, Gregory figured.

Gregory had told Madoka that he had no doubt MBI was aware that Mishi and Karen were now in New Hampshire, as an example. From his phone, they no doubt had acquired Mishi and Karen's phone data, tagging those phones numbers and GPS ID's in a database as family. Then the database was notified, automatically and constantly, of where Mishi and Karen were, separately, via the GPS location on their phones. And when the two had returned to New Hampshire and acquired new U.S. service phones, those phones were immediately compromised when address books and other data was copied from the old Japanese phones to the new American ones.

There was also the possibility of audio and video recordings at the O'Donnell apartment from installed "bugs" (which Gregory never located in searches but could not assume weren't there anyway, as he wasn't a trained Super-Secret-Agent-Man). Gregory had also calculated that it was highly likely that MBI collected GPS and audio records, and possibly video records, from the Jeep, all of it tagged with "#37" and "Gregory O'Donnell", all sorted, filed, referenced, and cross-referenced in the MBI database with every other factoid the assumed system was collecting.

Then, if someone in Security tapped in a query on their handheld, they could very likely pull up a comprehensive report on everything MBI had on #37. Likely, the report would be a high-level overview, a summary, then the Security agent could easily drill down into any specifics they needed with just a few clicks. A list of every person in Tokyo Gregory O'Donnell knew? Their addresses? Their employers? How often Gregory's phone was tagged at those acquaintances homes? Any locations outside of work where Gregory spent any time with any of his friends and acquaintances? Which route Gregory favored driving home after work? What grocery store did he shop at, what did he buy there typically?

Gregory told her he was not any kind of real database designer but even he could see how he would put together a system like that, just using the constant location services almost every phone had now. Tack an additional GPS reporter onto the vehicles any of the Ashikabi and their family had and you have an even better picture of their habits and routines.

And if _he_ could think of how to do that much, the very expensive and very competent data analyst's MBI employed could likely produce _miracles_ of information from mere wisps of input.

All this added up to why Gregory had scoffed at the idea of becoming completely invisible to MBI. Just refusing to use the MBI Card? Laughably inadequate. It would take an extreme level of "going off the grid" to truly disappear and even then the most they would likely accomplish would be to force MBI to assign human resources to tracking them and their activities. More expensive than depending on an automated data collection system, but hardly beyond MBI's resources.

Disappearing well enough to avoid whatever human resources MBI could put on the full time job of tracking an Ashikabi and Sekirei, if MBI was forced to go that far? Please. Not unless you were Jason Bourne.

So the best plan, in Gregory's opinion, was to keep providing electronic information to MBI about where their phones went, where the Jeep went, how long they stayed at the apartment and how rarely they traveled around the city. Leaving their phones at the apartment when they left for the safe house and traveling by rail or bus or bicycle instead of taking the Jeep.

Provide MBI with plenty of information, but make sure it is worthless or incorrect information. That was their strategy for avoiding MBI's _intelligence_ arm.

Avoiding MBI's _enforcement_ arm was a very different sort of challenge and one they had no information on, so they simply ignored it, for now.

What does MBI know? How effectively can MBI exert force upon what it knows?

Those were the key questions that Gregory insisted they needed to focus on, if they were going to survive the Sekirei Plan.

Madoka had asked Gregory if he thought there was any chance MBI had some way to track _her_ location in real time, like he had shown her that he could do with their phones using the maps app and the phones GPS. Gregory had explained how the phones constantly reported their GPS location back to Google's central mapping database and their social media services, through the cellular or Wi-Fi internet connections on the phones, and how this reporting required the phone to make that cellular or Wi-Fi connection persistently, which was an energy intensive task.

There were many Wi-Fi nodes throughout Tokyo, to be sure, and there were cellular towers _everywhere_ , but it still took power for a device to connect to a cellular data network and send its GPS information to a server. For their phones, with the best batteries available, they still had to plug them up to a charger regularly, sometimes more than once a day, due to the constant drain that functions such as cellular data connections and Wi-Fi data connections caused.

Gregory also told her he thought it was unlikely any such device would be set up to connect to random Wi-Fi nodes to dump its location data. Or any other data it might be made to collect about the Sekirei in question. When she asked why not, since it was a lot less battery intensive to connect to a Wi-Fi node than establish a cellular data connection, Gregory brought her over to look at the screen for the big black computer in the living room. He showed her a list of items, each one with odd names and a lot of numbers associated with them. He explained this was a real-time list from the telecom service's internet router in the O'Donnell apartment. Every item on the O'Donnell household network was listed in some way. And he knew what every one of these devices was. He pointed at one named "micwv" and said, "Even that one, the microwave oven in the kitchen".

And there was no device on the network like "Mdka37". Or _any other_ unknown device. Could a thing send data without "being on" the network? No, everything on any network had to have some sort of address; otherwise, it could not send or receive data.

If, and it was a big if, MBI had managed to implant some sort of GPS tracking device in the Sekirei, the range on its ability to 'reach out' and make a connection to some form of cellular or wireless internet service in the physical area around the device would be extremely limited. The hypothetical tracking device could not be recharged as their phones were, the Sekirei weren't plugging themselves into a wall charger every night, so even an extremely close range limit, such as one meter, would be problematic if it was to operate for more than say, a month.

Overall, Gregory felt there was not much chance MBI could have real time location tracking of all the Sekirei via some implanted GPS device. If there was such a device, it would have very limited range, as in a couple meters, and it likely would have to utilize some of the Kouten technology MBI had acquired, just to power the thing for the many months of the Sekirei Plan.

Madoka felt that matched up with what she had overhead about the Sekirei Plan's "Second Phase", where the city would be closed off, with checkpoints manned by MBI Security wielding handheld scanners to detect any hidden Sekirei in vehicles. Those handheld scanners were to be used for searching vehicles leaving the city, at roadblocks, implying a distinctly limited range, but also strongly implying there was _something_ in the Sekirei to detect.

After Madoka pointed this out, Gregory reluctantly agreed. There was probably _something_ embedded in the individual Sekirei. And it could be detected by MBI, though the range was likely very limited.

Gregory ruefully ended their discussion on the subject by pointing out that if MBI _did_ have real-time location and condition information on all of the Sekirei, wherever the Sekirei was in the city and at all times, then it was being tracked through means so advanced that it might as well be called magic. Therefore, there was not a damn thing they could reasonably do about it, so there was not much point in worrying about it.

Worry about what we can fix, ignore everything else. This was rapidly becoming their motto.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::  
:::NGFOM 3.1:::

Today, while Gregory was at his Saturday class, Madoka only had one item on her to-do list, and that was to hit the ATM at one of the post offices for her daily ¥500,000 withdrawal. Then she was going to the safe house to stash the funds in the heavy safe that she and Gregory had bolted to the loft's steel beam underfloor braces.

No need to trust Arnaud-san further than necessary, after all. Even with the drain on their cash from renting the safe house there was still something like ¥16,000,000 in their cash reserves, quite the temptation to anyone who might be snooping around when they were not at the loft. Better _safe_ than sorry, Gregory had said, as they were bolting the heavy safe to the building's structure. She had smacked him for saying it and wondered if he would ever get past his impulse to make what Mishi had termed "terrible Dad Jokes".

She wondered if any of her sister Sekirei were having problems with securing the cash they withdrew from the ATM's.

Madoka carried her shiny, new, Cervelo R8 bicycle on her shoulder as she exited the O'Donnell's apartment. Carried it easily, as it weighed less than 6kg total, which Gregory assured her was an amazing accomplishment of materials science and engineering. After locking the door, Madoka threw a leg over the seat and zipped down the sidewalk and into the apartment's parking lot, heading to the post office.

She enjoyed the feeling of freedom the bicycle gave her. It was not the same as owning a car but the ability to just get on her bicycle and go wherever she wanted was a new feeling for Madoka and she savored it. When Gregory helped her pick out the Cervelo last week, at a local bicycle shop, she had been shocked at the ¥700,000 price tag. Gregory just laughed and handed the MBI card to the very happy sales clerk.

She was unsure about operating a vehicle by her muscles alone, given she knew that of all the Sekirei she was among the weakest. But after the bicycle lessons from Gregory last week, he'd pronounced that she was in extremely good physical condition compared to anyone he knew, including the students he had who were in athletics at the High School.

After a bit of testing on the bicycle, Gregory started making notes in the Notebook about how even the "weakest" of the Sekirei seemed to have a physique that was at the top end of the human range when it came to endurance, agility, and strength. He said he wanted more subjects to evaluate before making a declaration on the matter, but still, he insisted she, at least, was in peak condition for a human her apparent age.

This made Madoka feel very good about herself. Living her whole life thinking of herself as a weakling and as helpless had not done her self-image any favors. Finding out that she could participate in, and maybe even win, any of the bicycle racing events in Tokyo made her a big fan of bicycling.

And the bicycling clothes she bought looked great on her! At least, judging from the looks her Ashikabi gave her they did. And the looks from the pedestrians she went past seemed to confirm her Ashikabi's opinion on the subject.

Which also made her feel pretty good.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::  
:::NGFOM 3.1:::

Madoka was pedaling at a very fast 50 km/h, whizzing past cars as she cut between lanes of traffic and maneuvered between the traffic and the sidewalks.

She ignored the occasional shout or car horn protesting her reckless riding. It was just too much fun going full out, pushing the Cervelo bike as far as she could. It was almost five kilometers driving from the O'Donnell's apartment in the north of Shibuya Ward to the safe house in the south end of Shibuya, in the Ebisu neighborhood. This trip typically took Gregory about 20 minutes, in the Jeep.

Madoka's best time on her bicycle, so far, was 14 minutes, 30 seconds.

Right now she was heading south on the long straightaway of Meiji Prefecture Street that ran alongside the Yamanote Rail Line. This two-lane street was the last good stretch before getting to the safe house and it was her favorite part of the trip. It was almost exactly one kilometer of straight road, so she could push herself and her bicycle to the limit. There were a fair number of vehicles on the street and there were several major intersections along it, but traffic laws and red lights were for the weak! If she paid attention to laws and sanity then she would never get her transit time down to under 10 minutes, a goal Gregory had flatly declared impossible.

She'd see about that.

Hence, her breakneck speed of 50 kmh as she blazed through the third major intersection on Meiji Prefecture Street. Another 500 meters and she would have to slow down as her route took her through the narrow side streets of the Ebisu district. She felt good about the pace she had been able to keep so far; with any luck, she might hit the safe house at the fourteen-minute flat mark today!

Madoka's trim legs pumped the pedals forcefully, her breathing was deep and controlled, the cool January air was preventing much sweat from building up on her skin. She felt _good_ ; the physical effort was not draining her, she did not struggle to peddle faster or get enough air, her body and the bicycle were like one perfect machine, operating seamlessly. Her awareness of the vehicles around her, especially the ones around her and the ones crossing Meiji Prefecture Street, was complete, total. She was connected to the street, the bicycle, the cars, the pedestrians, in such a way that there was no effort involved in navigating through intersections and traffic. It simply happened.

Madoka spared a thought for wondering if Gregory felt like this when he was driving his Jeep. She did not think he did, as he seemed to spend a lot more effort monitoring the mirrors, swiveling his head left and right to watch as he drove through intersections. Maybe this feeling of being one with every element of her effort was a characteristic of her Farsight. She would have to mention it to Gregory when he met her at the safe house after his class was over.

Something… there was something coming towards her, fast, but where…

"Aiye!" Madoka shrieked as she wrenched the bicycle to the right, cutting in front of and barely avoiding an oncoming delivery truck, and then she pulled hard to the left so as to avoid going off the road and up the rocky embankment that led up to the train tracks which ran alongside the street. Beside her, and then rapidly falling behind, she just barely saw, and then heard, _something_ hit the blacktop pavement of the street, hard, right where she would have been if she had not blindly dodged out of the way at the last second.

She dared a glance behind her to see if she could make out anything about what had almost killed her. In the fraction of a second she could afford to look backwards, all she made out was a female with long hair, and bare legs and arms, crouching in the middle of the street, watching Madoka now speeding away. That the woman then leapt straight up and out of sight confirmed the sensation Madoka had that a Sekirei had indeed found her and was now trying to catch her.

"No, no, no!" Madoka shouted as she pulled back out onto the street, launching herself straight down the centerline as fast as she could peddle. Thankfully at this time of morning, on a Saturday, Meiji Prefecture Street was not packed with traffic. There were a few delivery trucks pulled over in front of retail stores, to the left of the street, but otherwise the street was mostly empty all the way to Koshin Bridge Road, now a few hundred meters ahead. Madoka bent down low and pumped her legs hard. She could hear, over the wind in her ears, the tires of the Cervelo making a high-pitched hum as the bike screamed towards Koshin Bridge Road at over 70 kmh.

Past that intersection the traffic got heavier. Madoka weaved in and out of the southbound cars and trucks, blowing through intersections without any concern for cross traffic. What was the worst that could happen? A truck would hit her? No worse than what would happen if the Sekirei pursuing her caught her. Probably better, actually. A truck would only kill her.

So she peddled faster and harder.

She could Farsense that her pursuer was up on the rooftops of the six and seven story buildings that lined the left side of Meiji Prefecture Street. She spared the time to mentally thank Gregory for insisting they spend some of their time together over the last few weeks practicing her Farsense metafaculty. That practice allowed her, now, to use the generally disrespected metapsychic ability in an "undirected" way, without the need for concentration, which was effective for keeping track of her immediate surroundings and, it seemed, awareness of her fellow Sekirei.

A few times, she heard, or just Sensed, the pursuing Sekirei drop down onto the street in an attempt to strike Madoka. Each time her pursuer had misjudged how far ahead of the bicycle she needed to aim her leap, but Madoka knew her luck was unlikely to continue forever. At this point, she was gasping for breath and her legs were starting to burn. Five hundred meters at 70 kmh was apparently pushing her limits.

She _had_ to get off this street. It was too open, thanks to the rail line embankment on the right, and it was now obvious that she was not going to outpace her pursuer. If she could cut off this street while the Sekirei chasing her was atop the buildings or in the midst of a jump then she might lose her long enough to get to the safe house. Madoka could not remember any specific rule against attacking someone in his or her home, but she did not think such a thing would be permitted; that would be craziness, mayhem!

If she could get to the TR305, the last big intersection before the Ebisu neighborhood of their safe house, she might be able to cut left and then somehow get to the deep concrete channel that was the Shibuya River. She had never seen much water in the narrow channel and Gregory laughed that it was still called a river at all. He said it should be called a ditch. There were flat walkways along either side of the steep concrete embankments, for city workers to use and for pedestrians to enjoy. The safe house had a back door that opened out onto those walkways in fact.

She did not have enough time to second-guess herself; the busy intersection for TR305 was coming up very fast. Too fast.

Madoka had only a split-second to be scared of the speed she had managed to push her Cervelo to, however. The fleeing Sekirei and her high-tech bicycle flashed into the six-lane intersection, leaning over as hard as she dared, turning left. She _barely_ managed to keep the bicycle on the street; traveling this fast made turning wide a real problem, she now realized. Though she had managed to keep on the street and avoided hitting the sidewalk at her now-somewhat-reduced speed of 50 kmh, she realized that if she did not avoid the oncoming traffic she was now heading directly into she could be seriously injured, if not outright terminated. She pulled the bike farther to the right, trying to fit between the oncoming cars and the curb of the street.

She just needed to get a little way down the TR305, to where it crossed over the Shibuya River.

There! She spotted the flat, railed, bridge, just ahead! No! There were tall railings and safety fences to keep pedestrians out of the riverway! Madoka weaved her way off of the TR305, further to the right, ignoring the pedestrians who shouted and dove out of her way. She crossed a small one-lane side street, and then sped straight ahead into a small motorcycle-scooter parking lot. At the back of the lot she could just see a waist-high concrete wall, past which was the open space leading down to the Shibuya River.

Now braking hard enough to make the Cervelo's tires skip and bounce, she was still moving forward at a good clip when she reached the concrete wall. Madoka turned the bike as best she could and threw out her bare left leg towards the barrier.

In the split second that she'd had to come up with a plan, as she zipped into the small parking lot and saw the back of it was blocked entirely, she had thought perhaps she could plant a foot and jump herself and the bicycle over the wall. She did not have any idea if she could keep the bicycle going in the right direction or if she would lose control as she went over the wall but it was all she had.

Her foot hit the top of the concrete wall, the soft, sticky, rubber of her biking shoe gripped, and she pushed downwards with her left leg as hard as she could. Madoka's thigh muscles flexed brutally, the pressure on the tendons of her left knee and of her ankle was tremendous, but she had just enough to make it. Her forward momentum, coupled with the upward thrust from her foot on the concrete, practically _launched_ her, and the bicycle she was holding onto with both hands, up, over the barrier, and into the space beyond.

As Madoka went airborne, her body flying one way, the Cervelo tumbling away another, both arcing beautifully upwards, then across, then downwards, she experienced a moment of crystal clarity. A flash of complete awareness, between the ticks of a second hand, between the beats of her heart. An infinite, eternal, instant, in which she saw not only through her eyes, but also below and beside and even above herself. She witnessed her body cartwheeling through the air, bare limbs flailing, a full five meters above the concrete at the bottom of the waterway.

She spent an unknowable time marveling at the _height_ she had managed to achieve. She examined the shocked faces of the pedestrians who had been crossing the bridge as she'd sped into the motorcycle parking lot and thence over the concrete wall and into the air.

Gregory would be so upset she could not get a photograph of some of their expressions!

She wondered if the Sekirei who was pursuing her appreciated the amazing flight of Madoka and her Cervelo bicycle. She doubted it.

Her perspective returned to her body, violently, when she smashed into the slopped concrete embankment on the far side of the empty watercourse. Her brain then realized, and truly appreciated, that no matter how it might _wish_ a moment to be eternal, no one could resist the inevitable, powerful, grasp of gravity and velocity for long.

Not even pretty, alien, bird girls.

Madoka was grateful to the fates for the immediate darkness of unconsciousness, which mercifully spared her having to experience more than the initial pain of the impact.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::

"Imouto-chan. Come on, imouto-chan, wake up. Kya, come on! Wake up, Mado!"

Madoka felt a light taping on her cheeks, as though someone were very gently slapping her face. This, along with a woman's insistent voice, brought her out of the deep, dark, oblivion that had been keeping her safe from pain.

"Ow, oh, god, ow..." Madoka whined as someone helped her sit up, one strong arm behind her shoulders, lifting, and the other hand gripping her left arm, pulling gently. She hurt. Everywhere. Especially across her shoulders and her back, upon which she had, it seemed, landed and flopped hard onto the concrete embankment of the Shibuya River. And her left leg; the muscles from her butt to her foot were complaining loudly to her.

" _Wait… imouto-chan?"_

Madoka's eyes flew open and she looked right into the sea-blue eyes of her onee-sama, Toyotama, who was trying to help her up into a sitting position.

"AIYEEE!" Madoka screamed at the top of her lungs and flailed her arms to get free from Toyotama's grip, kicking with her bleeding, bare, legs as hard as she could, trying to crab walk backwards and away from the green-haired Sekirei, all at the same time. Toyotama's grip around Madoka's shoulders and on her left arm tightened like a hard vice. Madoka pushed against the gravelly surface she had been laying on, arching her back, kicking with her feet, and desperately attempting to break free from the Sekirei who had caught her, still screaming in utmost terror.

"No, no! Please, NO, Toyotama-onee-sama, please, no, let me go, please! Do not take me away from my Ashikabi, please!" Madoka fought with everything she had, trying to get away, but Toyotama fell across her, pinning her. Madoka was weeping and screaming and begging all together, and what little sane thought that was left in her mind amongst the fear and panic caused her to realize she had no chance at all of fighting Toyotama off. The muscular Sekirei was pinning her without even trying hard and was shouting at Madoka to stop struggling.

Madoka gripped Toyotama's left forearm in both of her hands and shrieked, a last desperate gesture. Toyotama made no effort to wrench her arm free from Madoka's comparatively weak grip, instead she just continued to hold the smaller Sekirei in place, tightly.

When the radius bone in Toyotama's forearm broke in half with a crack loud enough to hear ten meters away, Toyotama seemed to decide she should keep Madoka's hands held away. The green haired Sekirei grimaced with the pain, but managed to wrestle Madoka into a hold she could not break out of and that kept Madoka's hands away from Toyotama's body.

"No, no, please, no," Madoka, now exhausted, collapsed under Toyotama's weight and started weeping, like a heartbroken child, choking sobs shaking her whole body.

"Damnit, Mado! Stop it! I'm not trying to hurt you! Why won't you listen, damnit!"

Madoka just kept crying, even though she slowly realized Toyotama's strong arms were wrapped around her protectively, having pulled her up into the other Sekirei's lap. Toyotama was gently rocking her back and forth, and the other girl's cheek was pressed against the top of Madoka's head. Toyotama kept repeating, "I'm not trying to hurt you, imouto-chan, I promise…"

:::NGFOM 3.1:::

Several minutes later Madoka managed to regain control of her breathing, no longer shaking and crying against Toyotama's very comfortable, if wet, chest, her tears having soaked the black tank top that Toyotama was wearing. _That_ was why Madoka hadn't recognized number 16 when she'd glimpsed her in pursuit; she was wearing something completely different from her usual blue and white fighting outfit. She only had on a thigh-length black tank top and knee high strapped boots, leaving her solid, muscular, thighs completely bare. The tank top had a low-cut neck, displaying Toyotama's cleavage prominently.

Madoka did not try to wriggle free; she just leaned into her onee-sama's embrace and closed her eyes, taking in the scent and feel of the girl who had been her protector and lover for so long.

It wasn't the same now, for some reason.

When Toyotama placed a finger under Madoka's chin and tilted the little blonde's face upwards so that Toyotama could kiss her imouto-chan, that wasn't the same either.

After just a moment of their lips and tongues touching, Toyotama pulled back, her eyebrows pulled down and together. She looked confused. She knew it wasn't the same too.

Madoka looked down then wrapped her arms around Toyotama's torso, pressing her cheek against Toyotama's conspicuous chest, where Madoka had wept so much already. Madoka whispered, "I am sorry. I am sorry, Toyotama-onee-sama, it… it is my fault it is not the same now."

After a moment of silence, Toyotama chuckled softly and Madoka could feel her shaking her head in disagreement. The larger girl said, "No, Mado. It's both of us. I can't kiss you without thinking of my Ashikabi and I guess you feel the same way because you're winged too, you have an Ashikabi of your own."

Madoka nodded her head, her arms still wrapped around Toyotama's waist, head pressed against her chest, looking down.

Minutes passed in silence, with Toyotama's right hand gently playing with Madoka's blonde hair then sliding down Madoka's arm.

Toyotama finally spoke again, with a confused, dreamy, tone that struck Madoka as odd. "I'm glad, Mado. Is… is he a good guy?"

Madoka nodded her head again, but she was not really thinking about Gregory. Instead, she was now thinking about the sort of man Toyotama's Ashikabi was.

Toyotama was silent. Her fingertips caressed the bare skin around Madoka's midsection, then up the blonde's spine, under the lose fitting half shirt Madoka wore for bicycling. Toyotama's fingers stroked and caressed tenderly, with all the care of a lover, along the back of Madoka's neck and down to her shoulders. Not saying a word, and not letting lose her grip where her broken left arm was wrapped around Madoka's knees.

Madoka did not understand what Toyotama was doing; neither of them had gotten any spark from the kiss, it just was not like it used to be. Why was the larger girl stroking her fingers… across Madoka's back and shoulders… along her Sekirei Crest…

The little blonde Sekirei froze as a jolt of fear penetrated her heart. She did not move at all; she did not try to get away. She could barely breathe.

With just a word, Toyotama could start speaking her Norito and terminate Madoka. It would only take a second, with her fingers touching Madoka's crest as they were.

Madoka bit her lip to keep from crying out; growing terror now gripped her mind so tightly she could not think. Like a rabbit remaining as still as possible in the small hope that the hawk would not see it, Madoka huddled in the embrace of her once-upon-a-time lover.

With her face still pressed against Toyotama's large breasts, she could clearly see that the muscular girl's nipples had hardened, rather dramatically. Madoka even caught the faint, familiar, scent of Toyotama's arousal, her excitement.

Excitement? Arousal? At the thought of terrifying Madoka. The girl who she called imouto-chan, who had depended on her and looked up to her?

Toyotama continued stroking her fingers lightly across Madoka's Sekirei Crest. When she spoke, her voice was low and faraway, husky with barely suppressed desire. "I'm glad your Ashikabi is a good guy, imouto-chan. I hope he takes good care of you. Does he? Does he take good care of you? Like I used to take care of you?"

Madoka nodded, her shoulders hunched up defensively as she sat there in Toyotama's lap, her eyes open so wide you could see the whites all the way around the blue iris, and managed to gasp out, "Yes, onee-sama, he takes good care of me."

Whatever was happening in Toyotama's head it was something that the older Sekirei did not seem to understand or perhaps was fighting. Madoka _knew_ , somehow, that every second that passed in which Toyotama's thoughts went further down this road the more danger Madoka was in.

She could feel Toyotama nodding her head. "That's good. That's how it should be, right? I'm afraid I wasn't quite so lucky, Mado-chan. My Ashikabi wasn't very happy with the kind of person I was. He prefers cruelty over compassion. He believes the weak should serve the strong. And that the weak should be broken…"

Toyotama's voice had gotten lower and lower, until the last, whispered, _"…broken…"_ was barely audible to Madoka, even with Toyotama now nuzzling the smaller girl's ear. Tears gathered in Madoka's eyes again, her heart was thumping against her ribs so hard that it hurt. Huddling, shaking, terrified, in the embrace of a person who wanted to hurt her.

Any second now and Toyotama was going to cross a line she could not step back across. Madoka could _feel_ Toyotama shivering; her incredibly powerful muscles were hardening and an aura of violence and pain surrounded her.

Madoka wished she could understand what Toyotama meant, what she was doing, what she was thinking. She needed to know, now! What was the other Sekirei going to do, _what was she thinking_?

Madoka felt a barrier, a shield, between herself and Toyotama, keeping her out. She pushed as hard as she could but number 16 was strong, and that strength seemed to include her metapsychic shields. On a bare hunch spurred from one of her late night conversations with Gregory, full of speculation and wild guesses, Madoka took her healing power and used _it_ to _push_ at that barrier. Madoka told herself she wanted to fix whatever was hurting Toyotama, saying it over and over in her own head, that she wanted to heal what was hurting Toyotama, she wanted to get inside and fix her.

And then she slipped right through the shield, like it was barely there.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::

{ _Mind_ _Redact_ }

Madoka stood in some other place, a place with a sky that was all dark, angry, clouds. It was night, the only illumination was from fires scattered about the dry, cracked, landscape. Each fire lit a scene, each scene featured Toyotama. Madoka instinctively realized that she was seeing Toyotama's mindscape, with the other girl's memories scattered about in the distance, and her thoughts were perceived as drifting voices in Madoka's ears.

One name dominated every thought: Toyotama's Ashikabi, Izumi Higa.

Higa-sama. _Higa-sama._

In the ruddy light of one fire, Madoka could see 86 Katsuragi; the other Sekirei's face was twisted in shame and pain as muscular, faceless, men raped her. Toyotama stood by, watching, and made sure Katsuragi did not fight back, because that was Higa-sama's order.

Higa-sama. That name transported Madoka to another fire, in the light of which she saw Toyotama standing confident and proud in her blue and white fighting outfit. She wore an intrigued expression on her face, and was listening to an attractive young man in a very expensive white suit. Toyotama had _just_ stepped out of the MBI van, finally free from the labs and now out in the city. Immediately, this very pretty, slender, young man had stepped up to her where she stood on the sidewalk and started speaking to her. He already knew about the Sekirei Plan, he told her that had the desire to participate in it, with the goal of winning. He wanted the strongest Sekirei available to be the core of his efforts, to help him find others to bring to their side, and to be the first among them in his consideration. Toyotama could _feel_ the power radiating from this beautiful young man, pulling her towards him. That pull was almost irresistible, so she stopped fighting it and agreed to his proposal then stepped up to him and kissed…

Another fire showed Toyotama's fists crashing into the ribs of another Sekirei, a _very_ cute girl with dark, purple tinted, hair and wearing a curious black and white dress with thick petticoats. This girl Madoka did not recognize but, by way of Toyotama thoughts, she realized this was Sekirei 101, Oriha. As Madoka lingered at the memory of Toyotama's beatdown of the prideful and formal Oriha, she saw more of what happened next.

After Izumi Higa forcibly winged the petite Oriha, using the same spit-covered finger in her mouth that he used with 86 Katsuragi, the purple-haired girl's aristocratic, finely featured face twisted into a snarl and she'd _spit_ at Higa as he had been walking away. Madoka was shocked at the gesture of defiance, doubly so considering that Oriha _was_ actually bonded to this man now. You could clearly see the pink Sekirei Crest now on her upper back, there was no mistaking it. Higa Izumi paused and ordered Toyotama to cease her renewed beating on the other Sekirei and he considered Oriha's demeanor as she was held up for his inspection in Toyotama's unbreakable grip. He ordered her transported back to the secure rooms at the top of Higa Pharmaceutical's headquarters. Madoka heard what he ordered Toyotama to do to humble the prudish and proper number 101.

Madoka's involuntary flicker of curious thought at _that_ subject delivered her to the memory of Toyotama strapping the shame-faced, completely naked, Oriha face down onto a sawhorse thing made of rough unfinished wood, so that her arms and legs hung to either side to be strapped to the legs of the thing. Oriha's bare, full, breasts scraped cruelly against the deliberately rough surface of the board under her while at the other end the board was shaped into a sharp wedge. Toyotama finished tying the now terrified Oriha's arms and legs to the limbs of the device, leaving her helpless and horribly vulnerable. Her backside was completely exposed, her legs forcibly spread apart and unmovable at one end of the device, allowing an embarrassed Madoka to see every detail of how the wedge of the wooden sawhorse was pressing up against the girl's privates. The pale skin of the other Sekirei's back was glistening with fear-sweat now, her shame and embarrassment starting to be overcome by dread of what was going to happen to her next.

Though this was the first time that Higa had ordered Toyotama to discipline a member of their small flock, number 16 knew what to do, from watching Higa's assistant, the sadistic Kakizaki, at his play, using this same device.

Toyotama was reluctant. This wasn't what Toyotama enjoyed, the green-haired amazon scowled as she took the leather scourge from the wall rack where various instruments of punishment were kept. Toyotama looked at the leather thongs which dangled from the handle of the scourge, absently noticing the leather was stained with old blood. She really wished Kakizaki had been given this task, he at least enjoyed it. Instead, Higa's assistant was observing from a comfortable chair, sipping tea and waiting for Toyotama to begin.

Toyotama looked over at Oriha's perfect, petite yet curvy, completely naked and extremely vulnerable body on display before her. She _was_ enough to make Toyotama really take a second look at the pretty little thing she'd been ordered to discipline. Toyotama felt a stir of heat in belly that that she had not felt in months.

Number 16 followed her orders.

By the time she was done, an hour later, 16 was covered in sweat from her efforts. And pretty little 101 was covered from her shoulders to the prominent swell of her pert ass and all down the backs of her shapely legs with lash marks and blood.

Kakizaki instructed the watching, somber, number 86 to take the now-no-longer-screaming number 101 and clean her up with the water hoses provided for just such tasks and then to deliver 101 to her cell to recover and sleep.

Then 16 retreated to her own quarters, where she collapsed against the door as soon as it closed and furiously fingered herself to an almost immediate climax.

After the blinding pleasure that wracked her body like nothing she had ever experienced before, Toyotama fell onto her side, on the floor, her pants around her ankles, and she wept in shame, her mind lost in a maze of contradictions. A ghostly image of Izumi Higa stood next to her with an expression of barely satisfied acknowledgement, not caring as Toyotama lay on the floor, shuddering and snarling in fear, shame, and confusion, her mind close to breaking.

Madoka tried to turn away, desperately. But everywhere she looked she saw the beautiful bishōnen face of Izumi Higa, expressionless when Toyotama performed some act of brutality or sadism. Scowling in disapproval anytime number 16 did anything kind, anytime she even entertained a wholesome thought. He was in the background of every memory; even the ones further away like the memories of Toyotama in the MBI Sekirei Labs, the memories of Madoka and Toyotama together. Higa was appearing, fading slowly into all of them. Every desire that appeared and disappeared in Toyotama's mind now had Izumi Higa's face behind it.

Woven through _all_ of this horror and shame was Toyotama's fundamental understanding that of all the Sekirei enslaved, now and tomorrow and for who knew how many years to come, enslaved to the devil Izumi Higa, _she_ was the only one who had volunteered. He had not even had to lie to convince her. _She_ was the one who deserved to be enslaved, not the others. Toyotama's self-loathing, her desperate need for her Ashikabi's approval, and her complete mistrust of her own judgment, was twisting her, slowly but surely, into something dangerous. Something broken.

Madoka saw that in all the time number 16 had been bonded to Higa Izumi she had only had the one kiss, that one that Toyotama herself initiated, the kiss that bonded her to him. He rarely even spoke to his Sekirei, usually sending his directions via Kakizaki, though he occasionally deigned to speak to Toyotama to give her orders. Notably, he would give orders to number 16 in person when he wanted her to do something particularly vile.

Toyotama was being torn apart by her _guesses_ of what her Ashikabi wanted. Madoka felt a great deal of sympathy and pity for her one-time friend and lover, to be so unlucky as to have an uncaring and cold Ashikabi, who barely tolerated the presence of his Sekirei, and who gave them no affection or love or even any real clues as to how they might win his bare approval.

Madoka sensed her time was running out. She searched with every bit of Farsense she had, looking for the here and the now in Toyotama's perceptions.

Madoka found herself standing on a rooftop somewhere in Tokyo, looking down at herself, half sitting and half laying, in Toyotama's lap. Madoka noticed that she looked much like what she looked like through Gregory's eyes. Incredibly desirable, beautiful, _delicious_. Toyotama was weeping and screaming wordlessly, trying to pull her own hand away from the Sekirei Crest of the motionless blonde girl, her imouto.

The ghostly image of Izumi Higa stood beside her, watching. He did not say a word. He did not need to.

Madoka knelt next to the struggling Toyotama, shouting at the other Sekirei, "He did not tell you to find and terminate Winged Sekirei today! You were only here…" Madoka looked around, desperately, before she saw the memory she needed. "You were only here in the West to try to catch unwinged 48 Kujika! That is all! You do not know he would want you to terminate me, you do not have to do it, Toyotama, you do not have to do it! Do not do it, Toyotama!" This was not working. She could _feel_ the _lust_ boiling in Toyotama's body and her mind, and the only avenue her Ashikabi approved for release was _right there_ , in the delicious body of her imouto, the body she knew so well.

Madoka knew she was losing this battle, fast. Trying to command Toyotama to stop was not doing it. She turned and desperately pushed at the ghost image of Higa, where he stood next to Toyotama, on the rooftop. "Go away! Leave her be and go away!" Her hands went right through him, unable to find any purchase on the beautiful white-suited man. Madoka pulled at the only Sekirei power she had, as deeply as she could, and then _pushed_ at Higa's image as she had pushed at Toyotama's mind shield. The cruel Ashikabi moved! He did not stumble or react to the contact with Madoka's power, but his image moved away, visibly. Madoka pushed as hard as she could, willing Izumi Higa's image away, far away from this place.

{End Mind Redact}

:::NGFOM 3.1:::

Madoka opened her physical eyes as she was suddenly pushed out of Toyotama's grasp and away from the other Sekirei. Toyotama jumped to her feet and backed away from Madoka, holding onto her broken left forearm with her right hand. Madoka, sprawled out on her back, could now see they were, indeed, on the rooftop of one of the buildings that backed up to the Shibuya River, near where she and her bicycle had so dramatically crashed. Toyotama must have grabbed her unconscious body and leapt up here to get away from the eyes of the civilians.

Madoka stood, shakily, and eyed Toyotama warily. Number 16 gasped for breath, holding her left forearm against her body, her eyes were wild with confusion and suppressed desire. After several long moments she seemed to find some control; her breathing settled, and she exhaled a deep, shuddering, sigh.

The green-haired Sekirei then looked away, out at the city, and muttered, "I'm sorry, Mado. I… don't know what came over me."

Madoka realized that Toyotama had no awareness of what had happened in her own mindscape and that only seconds had passed by "outside". Toyotama was not even aware that Madoka had been in her mind, unaware Madoka had seen her secrets and witnessed her deepest shame. The small blonde almost collapsed in relief once she understood this. She could not imagine Toyotama leaving her alive if she knew… if she had any idea…

"That was a new trick, how you broke my arm. And what was that you were driving, you were really hauling ass, Mado."

Madoka blinked, confused at the attempted friendly tone of voice from number 16. She tried to gather her scattered wits as she replied, "Yes. I am sorry about your arm. I have not ever done that before, it was… well, like the opposite of healing. I do not think it is much help in a fight, it is too slow."

Toyotama nodded agreement, still looking at the buildings across the river.

"And, that was a bicycle," Madoka said. "Or, it was. I probably wrecked it when I went into the river."

Toyotama laughed, a strained sort of sound, completely unlike the loud, brave, laughter of Madoka's onee-sama, and she looked down over the lip of the roof. "I don't know. It's still down there. Come here, I'll jump you back down to where it is."

Toyotama held out an arm, which Madoka looked at suspiciously. Number 16 just waited. Madoka decided that trying to climb down from eight stories up on an unknown building was too risky. If Toyotama still meant her any harm, well, there was not anything Madoka could do about it anyway.

So she took the offered arm and Toyotama jumped the two of them down, next to the bicycle.

Once on the ground Madoka quickly moved away from Toyotama, to check over her bike, which was in surprisingly good condition. There were some scratches but otherwise no obvious damage. She was astonished; she thought it would be smashed to pieces considering how hard she herself had hit the concrete. She had bruises and scratches all along her back and shoulders, and she was still bleeding from the torn skin on her legs. Yet, here was her bike, barely damaged at all.

"Mado."

The blonde girl turned and faced her one-time lover, friend, big sister. Madoka knew, beyond any doubt, that the Toyotama she had known was almost completely gone now, burned away by the expectations of the evil man who was her Master.

"Mado… I'll try to get sent on jobs to the other parts of the city, not the west. But… if you do happen to see me again, please, do run as fast as you can and don't trust that I'll… be the same person. Even now, I'm so tempted to… god, I want to _hurt you, so much_ …" Toyotama's eyes filled with tears and the proud warrior Sekirei covered her mouth with both her hands, horrified.

Madoka answered, her voice as calm and soothing as she could make it. "I understand, truly, Toyotama-san. Thank you, for everything. I truly mean that. Thank you." Madoka bowed deeply, hoping Toyotama would have the strength to be able to just… leave, to just let Madoka go.

" _Please, just let me go, Toyotama, please. Just let me go."_

The tall girl nodded her head, her green hair swaying around. "Good. Okay. That's that then. Goodbye, Mado."

"Arigatō gozaimasu, Toyotama-san. Sayōnara."

With the finality of that farewell from Madoka, Toyotama leapt up and out of sight without another word.

Madoka stood from her deep bow and let out a breath she had not realized she was holding. Her hands were shaking so badly that she could not imagine driving the bicycle, so she pushed it along the concrete river way, until she saw what she thought was the back door of the safe house. Climbing up the steep embankment, pulling the Cervelo along, very glad of its mere 6kg weight, she reached the door she thought was the back door to the safe house and punched in the security code into the keypad beside it. She was _very_ happy to see the door open.

She then staggered into the safe house, the door closing and locking behind her.

:::NGFOM 3.1:::  
:::NGFOM 3.1:::

* * *

From the Notebooks of Gregory O'Donnell

_**Sekirei** _ _**-** _

_**Group 11** _

The following includes all Sekirei who were ever part of Group 11 in the MBI Sekirei Labs to the best of 37 Madoka's memory. Most were only a part of the Group for a short period, some joined as part of a merging of another Group into Group 11, others as individuals or pairs being reassigned, yet others were assigned to Group 11 after years of being isolated from all other Sekirei. Only five were a part of Group 11 from Madoka's earliest memories until she herself was removed just before the First Phase of the Sekirei Plan began but there were usually at least a dozen Sekirei in the Group. Enough so that it was possible to not have close relationships with every person and for rivalries and factions to develop, likely by MBI's design.

10 Uzume

14 Chiyo

15 Himeko

16 Toyotama – "Permanent" member

18 Ichiya – "Permanent" member

19 Ikki

24 Asuka

25 Fuji

37 Madoka – "Permanent" member

40 Shi

44 Yosuga – "Permanent" member

52 Akio

54 Kuruse

57 Yahan

67 Riko

72 Natsu

74 Narashino

79 Kamiko

84 Yashima – "Permanent" member

86 Katsuragi

91 Ren

95 Kuno

104 Haihane

105 Benitsubasa

106 Shijime

Additionally, the following Sekirei were known to Madoka but were not a part of Group 11:

02 Matsu

03 Kazehana

04 Karasuba

05 Mutsu

07 Akitsu

08 Yume

22 Kochou

**_Sekirei Plasticity_ **

Over the last several weeks of observing Madoka's behavior, I believe I've witnessed a phenomenon concerning the nature of the Sekirei as they relate to their Ashikabi. It's tentative and until we can interview more Sekirei and hopefully get accurate answers from them on this subject I'll not know if I'm on the right track.

The observed phenomenon in question is the seeming _plasticity_ of the Sekirei.

I suspect that the Sekirei adapt themselves to their Ashikabi to a degree far greater than any Terran Human could, even if they wished to. Whatever behavior, attitude, demeanor, morality, ambition, or desires they perceive their Ashikabi prefers in a mate, the bonded Sekirei will change to match. The key is, I believe, the "perceive" portion of the phenomenon. Through what means do these highly metapsychic people perceive the preferences of their Ashikabi? Quite likely through not only the Ashikabi's verbal statements but also via the deep mental connection the Ashikabi and Sekirei share. This would, one assumes, allow the Sekirei to become what the Ashikabi really wants in a mate, as opposed to what he says he wants.

How many men would say they want a partner who is an equal and who is independent minded and strong willed, because that's what is expected by society for them to want, when in the secret places in their minds what they'd really prefer is a mindlessly devoted sex-slave? If that Ashikabi's Sekirei became more strong willed and independent over time, insisting on equal treatment and being consulted in all decisions then it is quite likely there would be far more strife in their relationship than if she had perceived what her Ashikabi _really_ wanted in a mate and over time became more mindlessly devoted to him.

The potential for abuse of these sentient beings is so profound that it boggles the mind. How many Ashikabi have the strength of mind and will to refuse to send even subconscious messages about how they would prefer their Sekirei behave? How many would gladly accept what would seem to be the perfect adolescent fantasy-mate, dropped into their laps, without concern for the Sekirei herself?

Is it even possible for an Ashikabi to _not_ change his Sekirei to suit his own selfish desires?

The primary effect I have noticed so far with my own Sekirei, 37 Madoka, is a distinct change in her attitudes towards sex and physical affection, as well as an increased willingness to be seen in various states of undress around me. As this was notably not her behavior a month ago I must assume her attitudes and possibly even her desires are being changed by the plastic nature of the Sekirei themselves, via her perception of what I would prefer her to be.

A great deal more observation needs to be done on this subject before we can even begin to develop a hypothesis to explain the observed phenomenon, and even to tell if the observed phenomenon is being correctly defined.

* * *

_**Terminology** _

**_Metapsychic Functions_ **

**Redaction** (New Information, some data added at a much later date than the original notes) – Madoka described her efforts to "reach" into the mind of 16 Toyotama as being blocked by a shield, the same shield Madoka describes as detectable in all the Sekirei when using Farspeech to "get in" to the target's awareness. When Madoka attempted to get through, via the usual method of the Farsense metafunction, she was totally stymied. Normally, if she was desiring to simply Farspeak the shielded person, she would just "shout" at the target from outside their shields until they opened their shield enough to allow for basic communication. However, when she used her "healing" ability, the Redaction metafunction, she says she was able to "slide right through" the shield. It was still there, it wasn't broken or shattered, but she passed right through.

She reported that she gathered her Redaction power and told herself she needed to get through the shield so she could heal what was causing 16 Toyotama so much pain.

It would seem that, as I earlier speculated, the "healing" metafunction is indeed the same for intrusive mind work as well as healing physical injury. And the Redact metafunction has the ability to bypass the mental shields all operant metapsychics seem to have. Likely this is so they can actually heal those who have damaged minds, as the mentally damaged would very likely resist greatly any attempt by an outsider to access their minds.

Mind shields seem to be designed to keep general Farsense/Farspeech practitioners from snooping information out the Operant wants to keep private. They may also be helpful for resisting the commands of an Operant Coercer. However, Redaction, as the "healing" metafunction, seems to have special status when it comes to bypassing shields.

Obviously, more testing needs to be done, but we can say with a high degree of certainty that the healing injury and the reading/modifying the mind metafunction is, indeed, the same ability.

* * *

Started Oct 19, 2014  
Completed Oct 23, 2014  
Final Edits May 11, 2015  
Posted May 22, 2015  
Grammar and technical writing edits Nov 26, 2015


	2. NGFOM 3.2 - Watch That Next Step (it's a doozy!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies in advance for anyone reacting negatively to the song lyrics near the end of this chapter. "Song fics" are never as awesome to the reader as to the author but in this case a few pointed song lyrics were what came to the character's minds. It won't be a common occurrence in this story, so the author begs the readers indulgence.

**No Game For Old Men**

Book 3.2 – Watch That Next Step (it's a doozy!)

* * *

::~~NGFOM3.2~~::  
::~~NGFOM3.2~~::

 

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Tokyo Metro High School, Shibuya Ward, Shin Tokyo

 

"Gregory-sensei? Gregory-sensei?"

Gregory O'Donnell looked up from the picture on his phone at which he had been staring. He blinked, realizing he was not sure how long he had been looking at the short looped animated photo of his Sekirei, Sanjunana Madoka. It was one of his favorites, so far, featuring her looking up at the camera through her thick eyelashes and smiling her Mona Lisa smile, the one that said "I know something that you do not…"

He tried to focus his attention on the person who had politely been trying to get his attention. One of his adult students, yes, this was Saturday English as a Second Language Class. Ah, several of the students were looking at him; he believed it was Koruba, the thirty-something fellow in the second row, who had softly called out.

"My apologies, Mister Koruba. I believe my mind wandered off on its own and got lost; thank you for helping it find its way back." Gregory smiled apologetically to the class and stood up from his chair. "What was your question?"

Gregory answered several questions - at this point in the class he did so in all English though he accepted questions and comments from his students in either English or Japanese - concerning the study project the class was working on. He realized he had not been focusing on his work the way he usually did. It was more noticeable with the ESL class, but he suspected his attention was not on his work during the weekdays either. Not for the first time since the start of the spring semester three weeks ago, Gregory told himself that he really needed to clear his head and focus during school hours on school instead of letting his attention wander to his lovely Sekirei.

A half-hour before noon Gregory felt the secondary phone that he carried in his suit jacket vibrate silently with a notification that a text message had arrived. He knew the message must be from Madoka as she was the only person who had the number for the pre-paid semi-disposable phone.

They had purchased several of these pre-paid phones from a random convenience store for ¥10,000 each and they came with a hundred hours of phone service as well as several hundred gigabytes of data service. Since the phone service and the data traffic was ID'd as "LGke850imode-123456789" they were about as anonymous and "secure" as a smartphone could be. As long as neither his nor Madoka's "safe" phones ever communicated directly to their older, compromised, phones MBI (and, just as important, any hostile Ashikabi who had compromised MBI's networks, like Izumi Higa) should be unable to intercept their communications.

At least, that was his hope. There was still a huge number of details he'd not considered yet when it came to security and the new place he and Madoka were now spending much of their time at.

If Madoka was messaging his secondary phone then she was likely either at the loft or somewhere along the route to it. Gregory inwardly cursed the need to keep the new phone completely separated from his other electronics, especially accessories like the smart-watch he wore on his left wrist, which was a secondary display for all of the functions of his primary, compromised, phone.

Not connecting the smart-watch or the wireless jaw-mic or earbud to the safe phone meant he had to pull the phone out of his pocket, turn on the screen, and then check his text messages.

Barbaric.

" _G, was ambushed by 16 en route to safe house. Am ok no serious injury, at loft now plz come soon"_

Gregory felt his heart thump in his chest so hard it hurt. He checked the time.  Shit, still thirty minutes until class got out. Gritting his teeth, he tapped out a quick acknowledgement to Madoka then turned the screen off and put the phone back in his jacket.

" _She said she was okay. Stop worrying, Greg. She said she was okay. Take a deep breath. Let it out… take another… okay… good…"_

No matter what he tried, Gregory's emotions kept getting the best of him. He had to force himself to take slow, deep, breaths to settle his heart rate.

It was all he could do to not grab his stuff and run out the door and to hell with the class and his job.

::~~NGFOM3.2~~::  
::~~NGFOM3.2~~::

It took ten minutes to drive from school to the O'Donnell's apartment and park in the basement parking spot that he rented for his Jeep.

Five minutes in the apartment to change into jeans, a white wool sweater, and tennis shoes.  Then grab the small duffel bag that he kept just inside his bedroom door, packed for this very purpose. He dropped off his compromised phone and his smart-watch into the basket on the breakfast bar that he noticed already contained Madoka's compromised phone. With both phones here at the O'Donnell apartment MBI's GPS tracking would report they spent the weekend in. Mental note to not use the MBI Card to purchase anything until they recovered their compromised phones, lest MBI figure out they weren't carrying their phones everywhere they went.

Walking from the apartment to the extremely busy Shinjuku train station, six minutes. Navigating the byzantine mysteries of Shinjuku station to get to the Yamanote Line ticket kiosk? Ten more minutes. And that's with Gregory having practiced it several times over the last week. Japanese train stations were a cliché of crowds and confusing signs and for good reason, and Shinjuku was infamous even for Tokyo. It was, after all, the busiest passenger train station in the entire world.

Step into a men's bathroom stall near the southbound Yamanote Line platform; take the black hoodie and a new surgical mask from his duffel. Swap the black hoodie for the white sweater he had been wearing. Pull the surgical mask elastics over his head and settle the white cotton mask over his lower face, then pull the hoodie up over his head. No sunglasses or baseball cap; looking like a terrorist was worse than being easily identifiable.

Zip up the duffel with the white sweater now inside, put his arms through the duffel's straps so it wore like a knapsack on his back instead of how he had been carrying it in his hands, and then step back out with the hoodie up over his head. Elapsed time: four minutes.

No one casually looking for the white-sweater-wearing Anglo with the bag in hand would see that person leaving the bathroom.

Gregory did not fool himself into thinking he was practicing sophisticated spy-craft, but this was an easy change to make so he had made it part of his emergency plan.

Gregory was glad it was the middle of winter. During the summer wearing a hoodie would be a little suspicious, as well as downright uncomfortable.

Waiting for the next train was quick as there was one leaving the station every four minutes. Gregory had to hand it to the Japanese; their mass transit was a thing of beauty.

Now on the southbound Yamanote Line, four stops from Shinjuku station to the small Ebisu station near the safe house, a nine minute ride. During the wait he texted to Madoka's safe phone to let her know he was en route. The temporary safe-phones were not connected to map and GPS location accounts so she could not see where he was and vice versa. Something to look into addressing, later. With a hundred other security details that were now cropping up in his mind.

Walk out of Ebisu station, trek the 400 meters from the station to the loft.  Through narrow back alleys and along one-way streets, across the narrow one-lane bridge that crossed the "Shibuya River" (Gregory still snickered at the two meter wide glorified ditch being called a river) then turn left and he was at the back door of the safe house. The walk took six minutes.

It was almost right at 1 p.m. when Gregory shut the steel door behind him, making sure the automatic lock caught.

"Madoka! Mado-chan!"

He passed Madoka's bicycle where it leaned against the wall and took the stairs to the left two at a time, up to the big loft. Madoka met him at the top of the stairs and almost tackled him. She wasted no time in reaching up to pull the surgical mask down off his face, then wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down into a desperate kiss.

::~~NGFOM3.2~~::  
::~~NGFOM3.2~~::

Gregory held his Sekirei tightly to his chest. The light of her wings had just faded, and he was leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs, glad she had not knocked him over and sent the two of them tumbling down the stairs in a heap. Right now all he wanted was to hold her and feel her against him so he knew she was okay.

Madoka had unzipped his hoodie and her arms were around his waist under it. She was pulling on his shirt to untuck it, one hand already under the shirt and her palm pressed against his lower back. She was nuzzling his neck insistently and there was a _lot_ more wiggling sexy body pressed up against him than he had expected.

"Hey, Mado-chan, I missed you too." Gregory slid down the wall, ending up sitting on the floor at the top of the stairs, with an increasingly agitated girl in his lap. "Mado, hey, come on, tell me what happened."

His shirt was completely untucked now, both of Madoka's arms were around his bare midsection, and her fingers were raking up and down the bare skin on his back. And she wasn't just nuzzling his neck, now she was kissing and biting, and small moans were caressing his ear delightfully.

He tried again. "Madoka, hey, it's okay, you're safe. Calm down and tell me what happened, okay?" He tried to gently push her back and away, with his hands on her shoulders but she was not listening and she was not letting him gently push her anywhere.

Gregory tried to think but it was getting difficult. Just the soft panting in his ear was driving him a bit crazy, then Madoka's fingernails raked from his shoulder blades to below his ribs on his back and _that_ did it.

"Madoka, stop! Please!" Gregory gripped her upper arms and forced her back and away from him. "Tell me what's the matter!"

"No!" Tears of frustration started gathering in her eyes, and then she pushed both of his arms aside, breaking his grip on her arms and she tried to snuggle back up against his chest. He had forgotten how strong she was when she put effort into something.

A few moments of struggling later and he had managed to turn her around in his lap so her back was against his chest and his arms were around her chest, holding her arms in place. "Madoka, please, stop; tell me what's the matter. What happened?"

With a last gesture of frustration she threw her head back and hit him in the collarbone with the back of her skull. His Sekirei cried, "No! No talking! Just… Damnit, why can't we just have sex, Gregory-kun? Enough talking!"

Gregory was stunned into silence by that and Madoka stopped fighting him. Her head fell forward and she started to cry. He tried to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly but she slapped his hand away and rolled out of his lap to sit on the floor a few feet away, not looking at him.

He noticed she was not wearing much. A thin shirt that was quite see-through. A very brief pair of white and blue striped cotton panties (was there a store that sold nothing but blue-and-white-striped pantsu? If so, he really should buy stock). Between that, and the way her wiggling body felt against him, and her rather shocking suggestion they "just have sex", Gregory was so erect that it hurt.

After a quick "adjustment" and resettling himself against the wall so he was sitting more comfortably, Gregory waited and tried to think of what he should say. Madoka had certainly been doing a lot of flirting with him over the last few weeks, but he convinced himself that it was just her teasing him because she enjoyed the way he got flustered or how he would occasionally blush. Girls in his senior English classes did the same, occasionally; it didn't mean anything. It never actually meant anything.

A person could not help what they thought of. All they could help was what they _did_ about it. Gregory wasn't blind nor was he a eunuch and in his line of work he had to think about this subject and figure out how he would deal with occasional pretty, nubile, temptation who liked to flirt with their English teacher.

 _Of course_ he noticed when one of his sexier students would lean over to talk to him at his desk and "accidentally" display a nice view of cleavage. _Of course_ he noticed those times when a school uniform skirt was pulled up just over the girls knees under her desk and her legs were apart so as to give the teacher sitting at the front of the class a clear view of her panties. In fact, _two_ girls in this year's classes had been teasing him just like that, all year. Sure, Gregory _noticed._  

But he did not _do_ anything about it.

He was honest enough with himself to admit he also did not take any steps to make them stop, either.

But while you can't help what you think, but you damn well _can_ be responsible for what you _do._

"Mado? I'm… I'm sorry." Gregory was not new at this; this was not his first rodeo. The first rule of male and female relationships? If you are the man, you are the one who is sorry.

"No, you are not."

Gregory blinked at the muffled, angry, words from his Sekirei, who was now sitting with her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them tightly, facing away from him. He did not think he had ever heard Madoka flat out call him a liar. Gregory bit down hard on the first, angry, response that almost made it past his lips and forced himself to think about what she said and how he felt.

Was he sorry? Yes, he was sorry that she was upset. He was sorry someone who was once very close to her had ambushed her and apparently scared the daylights out of her. He was sorry for many things, really. Parts of him were really really sorry he had pushed her away just now. Those same parts could not help but notice how little she was wearing and how very very good she looked from behind.

Sure, Madoka was incredibly beautiful, and not only that she was _sexy_. Sexy was not just how someone looks. Looks was part of it, sure, but there was far more to sex appeal than symmetrical bone structure and how clear someones skin was or the ratio of breast to waist to hip. And whatever that "something" was, Madoka had it in _spades_. Even her forty-year-old Ashikabi was constantly in a state of "awareness" around her; he couldn't help it.  Every male Madoka was in the presence of was aware of her.  It was inevitable and completely understandable.

He ignored that as best he could. Sure, if he were the twenty-year-old Ashikabi she _should_ have had, either he would be unconscious from an anime nosebleed or he would have already taken her to bed.

But he wasn't that guy.

No, he was the guy who noticed she was shivering because she was cold. So Gregory pulled his hoodie off then scooted closer to Madoka to carefully wrap it around her shoulders.

Once he had the warm garment around her, she turned and leaned her shoulder against his chest. He took that as permission to gently wrap his arms around her, holding the hoodie closed around her body. He waited, figuring the next move was hers at this point. Anything he could say would just be more talking, which was, apparently, a problem. There was obviously a lot they needed to talk about and he could feel the pressure building, his own nature trying to force him to talk, to try to "fix" the problem. But he knew that was _exactly_ the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do was wait. Wait for Madoka to share with him what was on her mind, really listen to her, then think about what she said and then listen some more.  

And then, _maybe_ , try to fix whatever was wrong.

Gregory was embarrassed at how many years it took him to learn that simple, basic, rule about relationships with women. Wait. Be patient. Let them talk when they will, not when you want them to.

Gregory also thought about the dichotomy of the two versions of Madoka he knew. The beautiful and, well, flat-out smoking _hot_  version who showed off her 36DD breasts regularly and wiggled her fantastic ass when she knew he was looking.

Then there was the scared, young - terribly young - lost, confused girl who had no experience in the world and who looked to him to protect her and help her survive this insane Sekirei Plan.

The one who apparently now said things like "can't we just have sex?" and the other one who was shivering in his much-too-large-for-her hoodie while trying to stop crying.

Gregory rested his cheek against the top of Madoka's head, his own eyes now burning with unshed tears. It _wasn't fair_ to her, not at all. She deserved to have an Ashikabi who saw her as an equal instead of like… a daughter or a student. Someone who saw her as a woman, instead of seeing her all too often as a girl.

Not for the first time, Gregory _was_ very sorry she had ended up with a guy like him.

"You are feeling sorry for yourself again, Gregory-kun. Stop it."

"No, I'm not."

She thumped the side of her head into his chest. "Your Sekirei is a mind-reader, Gregory-kun. You should stop trying to lie to her."

That brought him up short. Was she able to read his mind? They had talked about her maybe being able to see into what people were thinking as an element of her healing ability but she had never told him she could do it.

"Yes, I can do it. I found out today how and it is really rather easy now that I know. It's easier than healing that cut on your hand the night I told you about my secrets. Though it is a harder to see what you are thinking than it was Toyotama-san, even if you hardly have any mind shield at all. I think it is because you are my Ashikabi and I suspect you do not really want me reading your thoughts."

"That's not very fair, since I can't read your thoughts."

She shrugged. "It happens kind of automatically now, especially if I am touching you and you are thinking about something very loudly, like how you are sorry I am stuck with such a worthless, old, Ashikabi."

Gregory didn't think she sounded like she was going to try avoiding peeking in his head. He also thought about her description of his self-pity while waiting for the embarrassment that she knew how he felt to dim. "I don't think I'm worthless."

She snorted in reply to that. He didn't think he'd ever heard her snort, either. Whatever happened today really did a number on his little Sekirei, that was for sure.

He felt her take a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Madoka then said, "Not in everything, but in too much you think you are worthless. I do not think you are worthless. And that should count for more to you."

A sardonic chuckle was his initial response to that. "Well, Mado-chan, from the last five minutes it seems you find I am worthless for some things."

She shrugged, and then fell still against his chest. He noticed the hoodie left her legs bare, and they were still pulled up with her arms around them. Her skin was light but not sickly-pale; there was a hint of golden "California sun" in her skin tone. The cool air of the loft made the fine, very light blonde, fuzzy hairs on her thighs visible in the sunshine and for some reason Gregory found that very attractive. Looking at the swell of her thigh muscles and her calves where they were pressed together and how clean limbed she was, how perfect her skin was, he realized he was rock hard, again.

At least she wasn't moving, so she probably didn't notice, thank god.

"I noticed, Gregory-kun."

He closed his eyes. Goddamnit.

"Why are we on the floor instead of on the bed, Gregory-kun?"

"Because the bed is too dangerous, Mado-chan, and this is where we landed, anyway."

Her soft, clear, voice caressed his ears. "It is not dangerous. It is just where I want to be, with my Ashikabi. I want to feel your skin against mine and to feel you inside of me, Gregory-kun. You said I was to think through the things that we learned were right and wrong and this is one of the things I have thought through. A lot. And I have decided that I do not care if it is supposed to be bad that a girl says she wants sex with her man. It is a stupid rule and I do not want to follow it anymore. Even if Mishi-chan or anyone else thinks I am a slut and a bad person. I do not care." Her voice was now steady and determined, even if she was speaking in a soft tone. A soft tone that he wondered what would sound like whispering or moaning in his ear.

Madoka shifted in his lap a bit, relaxing her arms from around her legs, allowing the outside leg to fall outward and the knee lower to the floor, the foot still tucked up next to the other foot. Maybe it was more comfortable for her but all Gregory could think for long seconds was that her legs were spread at a 90-degree angle and that all she was wearing was a tiny pair of blue-and-white-striped cotton panties.

"That is because I wanted you to think of my legs spread apart, Gregory-kun."

"Mado-chan, that's really, really, not fair."

Madoka's head was still resting against his chest as she sat sideways in his lap on the floor. He felt her shrug before saying, "I do not care, Gregory-kun. 'Fair' is going to result in me dying a virgin, never knowing the feel of my Ashikabi against me and inside me. So I really do not care anymore about 'fair'."

Her voice was low but insistent. Gregory was shocked Madoka had found the confidence to say such things, as it was almost unheard of for Japanese girls to speak so plainly about matters of sex. Even the language made it difficult; it was as conservative as the society was.

"Is that true?" Madoka asked in English.  Hearing her speak English sounded odd to his ears after all these weeks of the two of them speaking only Japanese. Since Karen and Mishi were gone there had been no reason to keep to the Only-English-In-The-Apartment rule.

"Is the problem then that I was speaking Japanese, Greg?" She turned a bit so her back was more against his chest, keeping the right leg pulled up and leaning a bit outwards, and straightening her left leg out so it was stretched out and flat on the floor. Even knowing that she was doing it deliberately and with full awareness of what she was making him think about Gregory couldn't help but feel his breath hitch at the thought of her obviously spread legs.

"So," she continued, slowly and thoughtfully, "if I said it in English it would help? If I asked you to fuck me, if I asked you to please let me suck your cock, if I told you I was soaking wet through my panties from just sitting here in your arms with the wonderful scent of you in this hoodie driving me wild?" The way she spoke it sounded like she was trying out the words, tasting the way they rolled off her tongue and over her lips.

"Come on, Mado-chan." he answered in Japanese, stubbornly, his voice a low whisper. "Please. Please don't do this to me."

"Well, it is true, Greg. My panties are completely soaked through. It is almost embarrassing. But I am telling myself to not worry about it. Worrying about being embarrassed is stupid, like you told me; it is something that is not helping so I am not going to do it anymore."

Gregory almost whimpered. Yes, English sure was more… direct.

She leaned her head back against his shoulder, where she had bruised his collarbone earlier. Her thick, blonde, hair tickled his nose but he barely noticed, just like he only just barely noticed the soreness of the bruise she was leaning against. He realized sitting this close and with her sitting like she was he could _just_ barely make out the scent of her arousal, the delightful scent mixing with the pleasant way she always smelled when he held her close when they practiced kissing.  Pheromones, he always figured.  And likely specifically engineered and extremely potent pheromones to boot.

The impulse to taste her hit him so strongly that his hand almost started moving from around her waist - entirely of its own volition - towards her cotton covered… well, her cotton covered what he should not be even thinking about. He closed both hands tightly against the opposite forearm to keep them from wandering.

"English is so delightful, Greg. You are right; Japanese _is_ very conservative. I had never realized how speaking Japanese made it very difficult to express how I felt on some subjects.  Especially about sex.  It even restricts how I was thinking about sex and about us.  And, by the way Greg, I think I like the word 'pussy' for my wet, cotton-covered, what-you-think-you-should-not-be-thinking-about. So you can call it that, please."

Gregory's eyes were still shut and now his jaw was clenched, as he mentally yelled out his exasperation,  _"Oh, for fuck's sake, come on!  Give me a break!"_

His concentration on his inward dialogue was broken by feeling his Sekirei move about in his lap as though she were trying to reach something, then a moment later her hand was on the back of his neck. She had reached her right arm up and back and then touched the back of his neck with just her thumb. Then she trailed her thumbnail lightly around his neck to his jawline then up to his cheek, and then rubbed her index finger and middle finger across his lower lip then his upper lip. Both fingers were slick with her juices; he could smell the delicious and complex scent of her arousal and when she pushed both fingers between his lips, he could (at last!) taste her.

Gregory was so shocked by what she was doing that his mind went completely blank.

It was the most delicious taste and scent he had ever experienced. His brain refused to even _try_ to think about anything other than paying complete attention to every exacting detail of what his nose and his tongue were sensing. He could _not_ keep himself from sucking on her fingers, to get every trace of her wetness off the digits and onto his tongue.

The fire that she'd lit within him roared into a bonfire. Gregory's arms shook with the effort of keeping still.

"That is what you wanted, right?" Madoka whispered, as she moved her fingers back to his cheek.

Gregory answered, again, in Japanese, his voice now low and pleading. "Please, Madoka. Please don't do this to me."

She lowered her hand back to her leg and was silent for a moment before answering, "Tell me why, Greg. Why should I die a virgin, why should I not enjoy the feel of your cock pounding my pussy, your lips sucking on my clit, the taste of your cum on my tongue and down my throat? I want those things! Do you not understand, Greg? I want them!"

Gregory almost whimpered. Damn but talking like that was just unfair! After a moment, he answered, "Because if we cross that line it will change everything. There's no going back, no changing our minds.  It's an irrevocable step.  No take backs, no going back to the way things were before."

She answered as soon as he stopped talking, "I will not change my mind and I will not want to go back. You are my Ashikabi, forever and ever."

Gregory grimaced and realized he _had_ to do something to change the scenario at least a little.  He wasn't getting anywhere like this.  So he carefully extracted himself from sitting on the hard floor with Madoka in his lap and as he stood he helped her to her feet.  He then led her over to the kitchen where he opened the 'fridge and pulled out a can of diet Coke for himself and asked her, "Would you like anything to drink?"

"A can of tea, thanks." She was stubbornly speaking English in spite of his sticking to Japanese.

" _So that's how it's going to be, eh?"_

He grabbed a can of her favorite Pokka green tea and then shut the 'fridge before turning around and asking, "Can we sit on the couch to talk, Mado-chan?"

"If you will speak English to me, yes."

"Fine, fine, okay, you win, English it is."

Gregory settled onto the couch.  It was a shortish green leather covered chaise-style affair with plushly cushioned arms.  The couch was intended to seat two who turned 45 degrees towards each other and leaned on the arms more than the back of the couch. In truth, sitting on it as a traditional couch was actually not very comfortable since the back of the thing was low and curved with the top ridge being beautifully carved wood instead of more cushion.

Madoka, still wearing nothing but panties and his hoodie, refused the couch's obvious intentions and instead sat between his legs with her back to him like she had been on the floor.

She apparently was not giving an inch in this thing.

"Was it that bad, what happened this morning, Mado?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Yes, but not right now. If I do you will go get your notebook and start questioning me and then I will not get to have sex with you."

Gregory sighed in response to that. The girl really was focused on that one thing. He had to admit he felt a grudging respect for her finding the courage to speak so frankly about it, in spite of her upbringing. If she were making hints and just teasing him he would not be taking her seriously. But if she was serious enough about this that she was willing to step outside of her comfort zone and tell him what she wanted directly, well he couldn't help but respond to that. He admitted to himself that a female wanting sex enough to actually say they wanted sex was… well, it was incredibly attractive.

But damnit, she was so young! In five years she wouldn't be the same person she was today and in ten years she wouldn't even recognize the things she thought and believed and wanted today.

And while she might be able to go on with her life, five or ten years from now, asking herself what the hell she was thinking sleeping with that old schoolteacher, it would _wreck_ him. Any commitment or decisions he made today at forty would be completely understandable to a forty-five or fifty-year-old Gregory O'Donnell. People just didn't change that much once they were past thirty.

Not like the seismic, foundational, changes they went through several times from fifteen to twenty-five.

Gregory had _seen_ it, a hundred times in his life. Especially with young women.  That point usually somewhere between twenty and twenty-five when they woke up to the fact that _this_ _was really the rest of their life_. That the guy they'd been wasting their time on for the last several years really wasn't the sort of guy they wanted. The marriage they'd had for the last several years not the kind of marriage they wanted. Call it Princess finally growing up or maturing or call it an early mid-life crisis, he didn't know what it should be called but he'd seen it time and time again. And he _knew_ Madoka, or any of the Sekirei for that matter, had not gone through that part of growing up yet. She simply wasn't old enough, no matter how old she actually was.

(And _that_  was another subject that he tried very hard to not think about. Because he was certain Madoka's actual calendar age was barely in the double digits, if not in the single digits.)

"Mado…"

"No, Greg," she cut him off, "I am not going to change my mind in five years and decide I need a different man or a different lifestyle or a different anything. You keep forgetting I am Sekirei and you are my Ashikabi. You think I am going to behave like any human woman might, and that just is not so."

Dammit!  It was _extremely_ frustrating when she rebutted his argument before he could even verbalize it!

"Mado, you may be Sekirei but you are also human. No, hold on, let me speak. I know you have things about you that aren't common human traits. You've proven that beyond any doubt. But there is still _no_ evidence you are from another star system, born of life that spawned on a world light years away with no common ancestor to any life on Earth. I explained to you what the odds were involving parallel evolution, not to mention the odds of two intelligent life forms evolving close enough in time and space in the vastness of the universe, close enough to meet each other. It's just… it's just bloody impossible, Mado."

He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts and she did not interrupt. "You're human, Mado. Homo Sapiens. You have five fingers on each of two hands. You have two eyes on the front of your head, separated by the bridge of a nose, which is mostly cartilage and rests over a mouth that has pink lips, which cover thirty-two small, hard, calcified, whitish structures called teeth. There are a million aspects of the homo sapiens body, inside and out, and you match them perfectly. You are descended from _primates_ , not birds. You can tell, because your bones are not hollow, and your skin is covered in fine hair just like all the rest of us primates, and you have _tits,_ Mado. Amazing, fucking awesome tits, but still they're _tits_."

Gregory found that Madoka sitting between his thighs and leaning back against his chest was not the most comfortable position to try to talk to someone seriously, but he was unwilling to push the girl to the other side of the couch. Especially given that she'd probably sit facing him innocently drinking her tea while flashing him her skimpily covered muff.

"Greg, I said I preferred 'pussy'."

"Oh for fuck's sake, Mado!"

When he heard her snicker, he closed his eyes, counted backwards from ten, then snorted in amusement, himself.

"Well, whatever you call it, it's another trait just like every other female human, Mado."

"I do not think so. In fact, I would very much appreciate if you would…"

"AH! Stop! Don't! I'm not inspecting your… your…"

"Pussy, Greg. Is it so difficult to say that word? Would 'cunt' be better?"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, no!"

She sipped from her can of Pokka Green Tea then asked, "Then is 'pussy' acceptable? I do not want to pick a term you cannot bring yourself to say; if there is a word you would prefer please suggest it. I would be glad to consider it."

Gregory put some thought into the question, somewhat frantically.  He ran through every synonym and slang term for female genitalia he could think of. Cooch? Crack? Va-jay-jay? Gash, muff, box, vagina, twat, quim, snatch, beaver, the bearded clam, cock pocket, cooter, vag, cunny, trim, fanny (for his British friends), quim, pink, poon, poontang…

" _No!_ Oh my Lord, they are all terrible! What the hell?  How have I never noticed this before?  There's plenty of okay words in English for the male parts. Even if 'penis' sounds too silly for a part of the body men do not consider silly, there's always the old standbys of dick, cock, or even rod or wang or johnson or shlong. And that's without getting into the silly terms that are out there, like "willie" or..."

"Wow, Greg, there really are a lot of words for penis. I will call yours a 'cock' if you have no objections."

Gregory felt his cheeks burning for no reason he could readily figure. "Um, that's fine I guess, Mado."

"And pussy?"

Gregory shook his head, "Damn Mado, that's just… awkward. But… okay. It is better than the other words I can think of and if you're comfortable with it then that's what matters."

"Well, you need to be able to say it too, Greg."

"That has yet to be determined, Mado."

He could _feel_ her pouting.

Damn, where had she come up with all this boldness? Just switching to English couldn't be the reason she was sitting here in her panties, leaning back against his chest, matter-of-factly stating she would henceforth refer to his penis as a "cock". Last month Mishi had confided to him that Madoka was a virgin and Mishi had mentioned that the girl was so bashful about sexual discussion that she wouldn't say "sex", but instead said "doing _it_ ", while stammering and blushing, like a… well, like a teenage virgin.

Now she's throwing around Anglo Saxon vulgarities left and right?

"You were saying, Greg, I have 'amazing, fucking awesome, tits'? And this proved I was homo sapiens."

Gregory sighed and thought, _"Dammit. Yeah, I did say that, didn't I?"_

"Okay, Mado, the point is that you are _human_. The Sekirei even acknowledge they can reproduce with humans. By _definition_ that means you are human, homo sapiens. And over the last month I have written down in the Notebook every cognitive bias I've ever spotted in your thought processes. It is impossible, _impossible_ , that an alien intelligence would develop the same heuristics, um, that's, ah, like, mental shortcuts or… the mental toolbox you have to make thinking more efficient… as terran humans have. Especially given that almost all our heuristics _and_ the cognitive biases that go along with them, came about in response to specific evolutionary pressures.  They're just like our physical characteristics. We have five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot for some fairly specific reasons. By the same token, and for some fairly specific evolutionary reasons, we are prone to Illusory Correlation, or Confirmation Bias, or the Gambler's Fallacy, or Neglect of Probability, all of which I've caught you engaging in. Those exact same evolutionary circumstances aren't going to just happen to occur on some other world where intelligent life is evolving!"

Damn it was difficult to have a conversation like this talking to the back of someone's head while they are sitting in your lap. And now she was sitting quietly, not answering.

"Really, Mado, I'm not saying this just to be contrary or even skeptical. But the Sekirei are human. Human Plus. But still human. So telling me you won't behave like I know human females behave, because you are a Sekirei, doesn't reassure me."

The two sat quietly for a while, both engrossed in their thoughts. Eventually Madoka spoke; her voice was low and soft, "So because you are scared that I will someday, maybe, decide I no longer wish to be with you, that maybe, someday, I will wonder 'what was I thinking?', because you are scared of this maybe happening someday in the unforeseeable future, I get to die a virgin? Is that what you are telling me, Greg? That is fair?"

Gregory leaned his forehead forward, resting his head against the Sekirei crest on her upper back, though he was not aware of it because of the hoodie covering her. His thoughts were bleak and his spirit weary from emotional overload. _"It would kill me, Mado-chan. If I ever crossed that line with you, I could not help but fall completely in love with you. Madly, passionately, completely, in love with you. And when you woke up one day and realized you were still young and beautiful and the man you were with was old and 'gross' it would kill me. I would die, right then and there."_

But he couldn't say that. It wasn't fair to Madoka to say that, and it was far too adolescent even in his own head.

"It is okay, I heard anyway, Greg."

"Oh." Gregory's eyes started burning with welling tears. "Oh. Well."

"Greg, this isn't that book, 'Lolita', and you are not, what was his name, Humbert Humbert and I am not Dolores Haze! I know you think of us that way and I can even understand why, given my lack of history, or, at least, a history you feel would make for a foundation for a person to build their life on, just like Dolores in the book. But you are not him and I am not her." She leaned her head back against him, on that bruised collarbone again. "You're thinking of an old song by someone named Cat Stevens?"

"You're still picking through my mind, Mado?"

"I could not help it. You were thinking about the song. Tell me how it starts."

Gregory gave up on blinking away tears and decided, instead, to ignore them as the first spilled over and traced down his cheek. His forehead still resting on Madoka's upper back, he mumbled the first lines of the song he had been thinking of. "Now that I've lost everything to you/You say you wanna start something new/And it's breakin' my heart your leavin'."

"I remember hearing that one," Madoka responded, "when I was listening to the music on your computer last week. I thought it was pretty, but… I guess I did not listen to the words very carefully."

Gregory could _feel_ her sifting through his memories, like someone flipping through a card catalog at a library. He could hear the growing frustration in Madoka's voice, building up the more she picked through his head and saw hundreds, _thousands_ , of warnings from every age and in every medium, warnings of how what she wanted would end in tragedy, usually for him, sometimes for both. "So there really are a thousand examples of why this would be tragic, Greg?  That we would end in tragedy? Novels and movies plays and songs, and... and real life too? Charlie Chaplin and… Lita Grey? She was twelve when she met Charlie Chaplin?"

"Yes, Mado, she was twelve when they met. They met again four years later, had an affair, and when she got pregnant with his son she was sixteen and he was thirty-five." Gregory's voice was hoarse and it was difficult to talk around the lump in his throat.

"Did it work out in the end, though?"

"No, Mado. It didn't end well. It never does. _Never._ It never ends well, Madoka. _"_

Madoka reached over to the coffee table and set her now-empty can of green tea on it, then took Gregory's now-flat-and-warm Diet Coke from him and put it next to hers. She turned around to face him, resting her forearms on his shoulders and lacing her fingers together behind his neck. She bent her head down to catch his eyes, as he was looking down and to the side, embarrassed by his tears and by how she had picked out of his head how he was scared to fall in love with her and how he just knew she would be the death of him if he ever crossed that line.

He grimaced and made himself meet her beautiful blue eyes. She said, "There are other songs and other stories, Greg, you know there are. I listened to them on your computer so I know you can think of better examples!" Madoka suddenly leaned in close, almost touching his ear with her lips, and in her incredible, beautiful, voice, softly sang to him, "You ask me if there'll come a time/When I'll grow tired of you/Never my love. You wonder if this heart of mine/Will lose its desire for you/Never my love."

Gregory wondered how in the hell she could remember the lyrics for a song from 1967 that she maybe heard once. But he had to admit she sang it beautifully.

Madoka pulled back and looked him in the eyes, earnestness and open honesty shining from her face, "Greg, I will not live long enough for what you fear to happen to ever come about. But I also know that does not help, because it means even if I never chose it I will still leave you behind, someday. Someday soon, in all likelihood. So I cannot even promise you that I will not leave you. I can only promise you the opposite, it is almost certain I will be dead before summer. And I do not know how you could go on living when that happens."

He grimaced and looked away, "Me either, Mado."

She nodded, then pulled his chin around so he met her eyes again, then said, "I understand. So, knowing that I will very likely be dead before summer, knowing that it is unlikely you could find a way to go on when I am killed in the Sekirei Plan, understanding exactly what it is I am asking of you, _I am still asking,_ Greg."

Madoka stood up and tossed off his hoodie, and then, in one swift and elegant motion, dropped her wet and, no doubt, uncomfortable cotton panties to the floor. She stood back upright and posed for just a moment next to the couch, looking at Gregory with wide, clear, eyes.

He just couldn't look away. No matter how many times he told himself he should, he just couldn't.

She sat back on his lap but facing him this time, straddling his lap as he leaned back against the cushioned arm of the chaise-style couch. He reflexively put his hands on her hips and she put her arms back on his shoulders, linking her fingers behind his neck, and looked into his eyes. She switched to Japanese and said, "I will give you everything I have and I will give you everything I am until I am taken away from you by cruel fate. Please do accept me, Gregory-kun. Please do take all of me and give to me all of you, even if it does mean some sad fate for both of us."

It took everything Gregory had keep meeting her gaze, the earnest look in her beautiful blue eyes was so intense, and her face was glowing with sincerity and, yes, even love. _"Seriously?"_ he thought to himself, _"You know what you're asking and you're asking anyway? How could you do that, Madoka?"_ Then the traitorous part of his mind answered, " _Because she knows it's no more unfair than the fact that she won't outlive you, because of the Ashikabi bond_."

Okay, that was a fair point. So neither would outlive the other? That was fair, he couldn't argue with that. But still, there was no way he could deserve this, deserve her. If he gave in, he just _knew_ the karmic bill was going to be hell. More than he could pay, he had no doubt at all about that.

And yet… and yet…

For a handful of seconds, he continued to struggle futilely against what was more and more obviously the way his life was going. But... eventually he surrendered to his fate.

At least the fall would be pleasant, even if he knew that when he hit the ground it would be excruciating.

Gregory closed his eyes for a moment, then looked her in the eyes and whispered, "Okay, Mado-chan. Forever and ever."

The happy smile on her beautiful face was all he needed to see to know he had made the right choice. Her smile, against which he had no defense; not since the Saturday morning in December when it was first turned on him, and likely defenseless until the day he died.

As she eagerly kissed him Gregory let go of the last of his reservations and his fears. Whatever happened from this point on, he would not regret the choice he made here today. Even if his life ended right now, while kissing this gorgeous angel who was, beyond all reason, _his_ , he swore to himself he would not regret anything, not one single moment.

For Gregory O'Donnell the rest of his life started today and for however long it was he would share it with his exquisite, perfect, miraculous Sekirei.

  
::~~NGFOM3.2~~::

 _I've found a reason for me_  
To change who I used to be  
A reason to start over new  
And the reason is you…

::~~NGFOM3.2~~::  
  


* * *

****Songs referenced in this chapter. If you would like to hear them I recommend searching out the studio versions; skip the live versions that you'll find on youtube:

" _Wild World_ " by Cat Stevens, from his "Tea for the Tillerman" album.

" _Never My Love_ " by The Association, from their album "Insight Out".

" _The Reason_ " by Hoobastank. From the album "The Reason".

Back in Book One there was a lyric from a song quoted and the name wasn't given. It was " _Chevy Van_ " by Sammy Johns from his album "Sammy Johns".

* * *

****No Notebooks entry this chapter. And apologies for those expecting a lemon scene; many were written, none fit. The chapter _insisted_ on ending there, so there it ends.

* * *

Started Oct 31 2014  
Finished Jan 10 2015  
Final Edits May 10 2015  
Posted May 22 2015


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